


Heart of the Monster

by Eighty_Sixed



Series: White Lodge [2]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon-Typical Horror, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ignores Season 3, Mild Gore, Mythology References, Non-Graphic Violence, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 52,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24764470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eighty_Sixed/pseuds/Eighty_Sixed
Summary: One year after Laura Palmer's murder, Coop resigns from the FBI and disappears. Harry sets off on a journey to find him.
Relationships: Dale Cooper & Harry Truman
Series: White Lodge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790923
Comments: 14
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

_Harry opened his eyes and found himself in a world of pure geometry. Squares inside circles inside squares inside circles, like mirrors reflecting mirrors in an infinite fractal cascade of self-similarity. He could feel as well as hear, a steady, relentless pounding, like a drumbeat. With each beat, the shapes surrounding him expanded and contracted._

_“Harry,” a voice said, and suddenly Coop was in front of him. Even though there was no discernible light source, Coop cast a long shadow against the intricate network of shapes behind him._

_“Coop? What are you doing here?” Harry’s voice was nearly drowned out by the insistent drumbeat sound. He couldn’t understand Coop why Coop would be here, in this strange world._

_“Buried in the sky. In the heart of the monster.” With that, Coop changed, dissolving into what looked like countless millions of grains of sand. Alarmed, Harry reached out for him, just as a breeze stirred from some unseen source, and the sand was carried away and Coop was gone. Harry could feel sand sifting through his fingers as the wind increased its strength and the drumbeat got louder and louder …_

* * *

Harry sat straight up in bed, sweating and breathless. His eyes darted around the familiar shapes of his bedroom, illuminated by the gray dawn. He could still hear the echo of the drumbeat in his head, feel it thrumming in his chest, and he rubbed his fingers together half-expecting to feel grains of sand rolling between them. “Damn,” he said aloud. That was some dream. He never had dreams that vivid, not even when he was crashing after an eighteen-hour day of work with his mind racing. And yesterday had been a normal day. The most serious call he’d had to deal with was one from Norma about a bear getting into the dumpsters at the Double R again. He’d spent most of the day playing darts with Hawk and Andy and monitoring the trees outside his office window with his binoculars to look for the first robins of the spring. There was no reason for him to have that sort of intense anxiety dream now.

Or maybe there was, he thought, with a slowly dawning realization of what day it was. February 24th. The one-year anniversary of Laura Palmer’s murder. He had probably been thinking about that as he drifted off to sleep, and that’s why he had such a disturbing dream. It made sense that Coop was in it too, then. When Harry looked back at those few weeks last spring, he felt a complicated mix of horror and nostalgia. Horror because of all that had happened with Bob and the Black Lodge, and because he had lost Josie, and the town had lost its innocence with all the murder and mayhem packed into that spring. But at the same time, all his memories of Coop – brilliant, bizarre, wonderful Coop – were tied up in those memories of the horror, because he would have never met Coop if Laura Palmer hadn’t been murdered, and because Coop had been such an integral part of everything that happened after. Now that Coop was back in Philadelphia, they had maintained contact with an occasional phone call, once a month or so. When was the last time he’d talked to Coop? Almost six weeks ago, he realized; they’d spent a couple of hours on the phone during the long MLK Day weekend. Well, he’d call him today, Harry resolved. His lingering anxiety from the dream would be eased by hearing Coop’s voice, and he was sure Coop would also be glad to hear from him on the anniversary of Laura’s death. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was almost seven, so ten on the east coast. It was Saturday, but Coop was probably in his office anyway, assuming he was in Philadelphia and not traveling for a case. Harry decided he’d call him at home in the evening, so as not to bother him at work. Yawning, he got out of bed and started getting ready for the day, knowing there was no chance he would be able to get back to sleep now.

It was a typical late February day, with the sky so thick with clouds that there was no visible confirmation of the sun’s location, or indeed even existence. It was not exactly raining, more misting in that lazy Pacific Northwest way, and fog clung to the upper slopes of Whitetail Mountain, occasionally swirling away to reveal its snow-covered firs. But there was a breath of warmth in the air that ghosted across the snowbanks piled up beside the highway, causing rivulets of turbid water to cascade across the pavement. A time of transition, winter yielding to spring.

It was another uneventful, pleasantly dull day at the station. Two calls to deal with, one resulting from a trucker day-drinking at the Roadhouse and getting a bit out of hand, the other helping a kid from Coeur d’Alene to get his car out of a ditch after sliding on some black ice on the highway. The rest of the day Harry spent in idle conversation with Hawk and Andy over coffee and donuts. When he was planning to call Coop, he liked to gather tidbits and stories to share with him, things like what new milestone Andy and Lucy’s baby had reached (“he can do push-ups while lying on his tummy,” Andy told him excitedly, “he’s going to be real strong”) or what luck Hawk had had on his last hunting trip (“six-point elk,” Hawk informed him). For that same reason, he went to the Double R for lunch, so he could try whatever pie Norma had available and describe it to Coop in mouth-watering detail later (lemon meringue, this time). Whenever they talked, Coop was eagerly took in all these snippets of life in Twin Peak, peppering Harry with follow-up questions and, in the case of the pie, no small amount of longing (during their last call, when Harry had gotten through a particularly lyrical evocation of Norma’s new Dutch apple pie: “Harry, I never thought you were capable of cruelty, but describing Norma’s pie in such vivid detail to a man 2500 miles away from it amounts to torture.”). In turn, Coop would tell stories from his latest cases, which always seemed to have their fair share of weirdness despite taking place in far more normal places than Twin Peaks (some of Harry’s favorites were when Coop had to tackle a sumo wrestler that Albert had for some reason chosen to insult and when Gordon had accidentally destroyed a new surveillance device the FBI was test-driving by literally shattering it with the volume of his voice). In between laughing over their stories, Coop would ask Harry’s advice on some element of a case he was working on (“Harry, you know how I value your expertise…”) and would, in turn, subject his considerable insight to whatever “case” Harry was working on. Coop always addressed mysteries such as how the bear kept getting past Norma’s dumpster defenses and which neighbor was stealing Doc Hayward’s newspaper with the same level of gravity and meticulousness that he applied to his own cases of serial killers. In all, they sometimes spent two or three hours talking during their semiregular calls.

One thing they didn’t talk about was the ordeal they had gone through last spring, with Coop being trapped in the Black Lodge, his doppelganger almost killing Harry, then Bob taking over Coop’s body (and almost killing Harry again). After that crisis had been resolved, Coop had left Twin Peaks immediately. Harry had been a bit afraid that he would never hear from Coop again, but a week or so later he had gotten a call from Coop in which he chatted about a new case he was working in Detroit, sounding completely like his normal self as if nothing had happened. Before leaving Twin Peaks, Coop had told Harry that he needed to meditate and reflect on his experiences, and Harry sometimes wanted to ask him how that was going, to make sure that he was dealing with it all okay. But he always sounded more than okay on their calls, and since he never brought it up Harry felt compelled, as always, to follow Coop’s lead. But given the somber anniversary today, and the unsettling dream he had had, Harry resolved that when he spoke with Coop tonight he would find a way to ask casually how Coop was doing, whether he still had nightmares about Bob and the Black Lodge (as Harry definitely still did), whether there was anything Harry could do to help.

When he got home, it was around six, so nine on the east coast, which meant Coop should be home. Harry dialed his home number and was disappointed when he heard Coop’s coolly professional answering-machine message. “Hey Coop,” Harry said to the machine. “Just wondering how you are. Today is … well, you know what today is. Give me a call when you get a chance. Home or office, doesn’t matter.” Hanging up, Harry figured Coop was probably traveling for a case, or maybe he actually had plans for his Saturday night and was out on a date or something. Well, he always called back promptly, so Harry assumed he would hear from him tomorrow, or in the next few days if he was out of town. Harry grabbed a beer, watched a John Wayne movie on TV, and went to bed soon after. This time his sleep was undisturbed by dreams; it was like just the anticipation of talking to Coop soon eased the anxiety that still crouched in the back of his mind.

* * *

The next few days came and went, and Coop did not call. At first Harry didn’t think much of it, because sometimes Coop spent weeks away from Philly if he was working a complicated case, as he had in Twin Peaks last year. Usually, if he was in one place for more than a week or two, he would drop Harry a quick line in his office, saying something like “Harry, it looks like I’ll be in Key West for a while yet, so just wanted to let you know you can reach me at this number if you need me. You know, they have the most fascinating flocks of feral chickens here, and of course this is where key lime pie was invented…” This time, nothing, but then it hadn’t been that long yet. Harry did try calling Coop at home again on Saturday evening, a week after his first call, but got the answering machine again. This time he didn’t leave a message, figuring Coop would probably either return home or call him from wherever he was next week.

The week dragged on as the roadside snowbanks continued to shrink from the occasional bursts of dazed sunshine emerging tentatively from the clouds. The first trilliums poked their heads out of the dirt along the walkway in front of the sheriff’s department, and Harry watched the newly returned robins on the lawn enjoy a feeding frenzy as worms escaped their flooded tunnels. The unease in the back of his mind was growing by the day, crystallizing into a sharp edge that scraped against his thoughts. He didn’t know the reason for it, he had gone longer than this without talking to Coop before. It was just the lingering of that damn dream. He could still feel the grains of sand between his fingers. On Friday morning, he decided that, if he still hadn’t heard from Coop by Monday, he would just call his office and find out where he was. Having made this decision, the anxiety released its hold a bit, and he had a good lunch with Andy and Hawk at the Double R, chased away some kids who were throwing water balloons at cars in front of Big Ed’s gas station, and spent the rest of the afternoon getting caught up on paperwork in his office. Just after four, when he was thinking about knocking off early and stopping at the Roadhouse on his way home, Lucy rang his office line. He picked up the phone, and Lucy said, “Sheriff, there’s a call for you from the FBI…”

Harry grinned. “Put him through.”

Lucy was not done, though. “Sheriff, you didn’t let me finish. It’s not Agent Cooper, if that’s who you thought it was. I mean, it makes sense if that’s who you thought it was, because he’s the FBI agent we know the best and so he’s the one most likely to call –”

“Lucy,” Harry interrupted. “Who is it?” He usually didn’t mind listening to Lucy’s long-winded explanations, but right now he didn’t have the patience. The knot of anxiety that had begun to loosen this morning was making itself felt again.

“It’s another FBI agent we know. It’s Agent Rosenfield. Do you want me to put him through?”

“Yes, please.” The anxiety that had been in the back of his mind for the past two weeks was now fluttering around like a wild thing. Why would Albert be calling him? Despite the relative peace they had eventually made, they still did not like each other, and he hadn’t spoken with Albert since the end of the mess last spring. He couldn’t think of many reasons why Albert would call him, and he didn’t like those reasons, especially since Coop wasn’t returning his calls, and especially not since he had had that damn dream the night of the anniversary of Laura Palmer’s murder…

“He’s on line three. The one that’s blinking –"

“Got it, Lucy!” He didn’t mean to snap at her, but his heart was pounding frantically. Switching the phone over to line three, he said without preamble, “Albert, what’s going on? Is Coop okay?”

There was a moment’s pause, then a heavy sigh from the other end of the line. “I was hoping you’d be able to tell me, Sheriff.”

“What does that mean?” Harry’s voice was tight. He had _known_ something was wrong when Coop didn’t call back, no, he had known even earlier, when he had that dream…

“It means he’s gone somewhere, I don’t know where, but I assumed it was your ridiculous little town. He never shuts up about the Douglas firs and the cherry pie. You haven’t heard from him lately?”

“Not since January. I tried calling him a couple of weeks ago, but he never called back …”

“Then you don’t know.”

“Know what?” Harry didn’t feel nearly as bad for snapping at Albert as he had for snapping at Lucy.

“Coop resigned from the FBI.”

“What?” Harry couldn’t wrap his mind around Coop not being an FBI agent. It was so essential to who he was. He remembered how lost Coop had looked when he was suspended, without his badge and gun and dressed in flannels instead of his usual suit, how he had perked up when Harry deputized him. The idea of Coop voluntarily leaving the FBI was inconceivable. “Why?”

Albert sighed again. “I don’t really know. He was working a rough case. There was a girl, seventeen years old, murdered. I think it reminded him of Laura Palmer. It even happened on the anniversary of her death.”

_The night I had that dream_ , Harry realized. “Were there any other connections between the two cases?”

“No, there were no connections at all.” Albert sounded impatient as usual. “The date is a meaningless coincidence. Other than their ages and the fact that they were murdered, the victim had nothing in common with Laura Palmer. The circumstances of the murder were completely different. It happened in Savannah, for god’s sake. You can’t get much further from Twin Peaks.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, you know Coop. The term ‘meaningless coincidence’ is not in his lexicon. As I said, I don’t know exactly what happened, because I was working another case in San Diego at the time. But, according to Diane, he apparently he became convinced that there was some kind of ancient evil following him around and causing pain and suffering or some nonsense like that.” Albert’s voice dripped with derision, but Harry could also hear the concern beneath it.

“So he just resigned?”

“Yes, he just came back from Savannah before the case was even resolved, walked into Gordon’s office and handed him his letter of resignation. Didn’t even tell me he was going to do it, I only heard about it after I got back from San Diego.”

“Have you talked to him since?”

“No. I also tried calling him, but nothing. I thought maybe he just needed some space to meditate or do yoga or tune up his chakras or whatever it is he does. But when I still hadn’t heard anything this afternoon, I went over to his apartment. It’s been vacated. He moved out, no forwarding address.”

“Where would he go? Does he have any family, or …” Harry felt a pang of regret that, for all it felt like they’d known each other forever, he didn’t actually know Coop that well. Within ten seconds of meeting each other, they were somehow already friends. But other than the history with Caroline and Windom Earle, he knew next to nothing about Coop’s past or personal life. Coop had always shown great interest in Harry’s life, asking him about his family and his high-school years and his past girlfriends. Harry had obligingly filled him in over beers at the Roadhouse or over coffee and pie at the Double R or over their long phone calls in the past year. So Coop knew pretty much everything about Harry, because there wasn’t much to know. But he hadn’t asked about Coop’s life, and Coop hadn’t volunteered information either. He didn’t even know if Coop’s parents were still alive, or if he had any siblings, or where he had grown up. At the time, Harry had thought he was being respectful by not asking Coop about things he didn’t seem to want to talk about, but now he just felt like a terrible friend. Why hadn’t he just followed up some of Coop’s questions with a simple _And how about you?_

“Not that I know of.” Apparently, Albert hadn’t grilled Coop on his personal life either, which made Harry feel a bit better. And then immediately feel worse again because comparing his social skills to Albert’s made for a pretty low bar. “Actually, as pathetic as it sounds, I think you’re the closest thing he has to family, Sheriff.”

Harry felt his chest tighten. He had to find Coop, had to know if he was okay. “Albert, is there any way you could send me those case files from Savannah?”

“Hmm, let’s see. Can I send the sheriff of a small town on the opposite side of the country confidential files for a federal murder case that is completely out of his jurisdiction, out of his professional expertise and most likely beyond his ability to grasp the details of, to what? To see if we, the FBI, have missed some pertinent detail that only someone with your vast and boundless expertise on the finer points of traffic tickets and deer collisions could possibly hope to discover and thereby lead to the resolution of the case and to Agent Cooper’s location?” There was a time when this kind of speech from Albert would have gotten under Harry’s skin, but now he just let it wash over him. Albert was too far away to hit, so there was no sense in getting annoyed by him.

“Yeah, could you do that?” Harry interjected when he sensed that Albert was done.

A pause. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Albert. If you hear anything, call me right away, okay?”

“I will. Same goes for you, Sheriff.” A click as Albert hung up.

Harry leaned back in his chair. He should have taken that dream more seriously. He knew better than to just dismiss things like that when Coop was involved. Honestly, he should have known something was wrong even further back, when Coop had just brushed off all his traumatic experiences in Twin Peaks as if they had never happened. Harry still shuddered every time he heard an owl hoot or caught a glimpse of red curtains. He still woke up sometimes in breathless panic, clutching at his neck, which was scarred from where Bob had used Coop’s doppelganger to slash his throat. And Harry had gone through only a fraction of what Coop had. Coop had spent a much longer time in the Black Lodge, and had to deal with the unique terror of having Bob _in his mind_ , and Harry knew that Coop also felt guilty about what had happened to Ronette Pulaski, and to Annie, and to Harry himself. So yet again, Harry was furious at himself for not being a better friend. Another set of simple questions he could have asked during any of their conversations over the past year: _How are you feeling? Are you sleeping okay? Do you want to talk about it?_ But now it was too late, Coop had obviously been pushed to some sort of breaking point, and he hadn’t even called Harry for help. That fact lodged in Harry’s chest like a knife blade. He had wanted so badly to believe that Coop was fine, and maybe also wanted to believe that he was fine himself, that he had completely failed Coop as a friend. If he could just find Coop now, he would do things right this time, but it was clear that Coop didn’t want to be found.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry did end up going to the Roadhouse on his way home that night after all. But instead of having a beer or two while watching the game as he had originally planned, he started with a shot of whiskey and ending up drinking the whole bottle. His objective, he came to dimly realize through the haze of alcohol, was to drink enough that there would be no chance of dreaming that night. He was also faintly aware that he was making an ass of himself, yelling at Stewie the bartender when he tried to cut him off and actually falling off the barstool at one point, at a point when he was still sober enough to realize that he would be very embarrassed about all this in the morning. Sometime after midnight, someone must have called Hawk, because he suddenly appeared next to Harry’s elbow, confiscated the nearly empty bottle of Jack, and gently but firmly maneuvered him out to Hawk’s truck. The next thing Harry knew, he was on his bed at home and Hawk was pulling off his boots and telling him to sleep it off.

The next morning was unfairly, obscenely bright and blue, with seemingly not a single cloud to be found in the entire state of Washington, a near climatological impossibility in early March. The sun’s rays angled through the window to send knives through Harry’s eyes and into his brain. He groaned, rolled over away from the windows, and pulled the blankets over his head, but the movement stirred the nausea that was starting to roil. God, he hated hangovers. The headaches were bad enough, but the nausea was the worst. He hadn’t gotten that drunk since … since the night Josie died. He remembered tearing apart the Bookhouse in his crazed grief, sitting there with his loaded gun and honestly not knowing what he intended to do with it. Then Coop had come in and looked at him with such compassion that Harry felt a sense of rage swell within him, rage that anyone would have the audacity to try to take _this_ from him, this pain, it was _his_ , and then Coop’s arms were around him and Harry sank against him as his rage dissolved back into grief and tears. He didn’t remember what Coop had said, if he had said anything, but he remembered the feeling of being embraced. He didn’t know what he would have done if Coop hadn’t been there that night, but he was grateful in a way that he had never been able to express that Coop had been there, was always there for him.

Yes, and the hangover that next morning was also a vivid memory, one that he was currently reliving. He remembered Coop going on about hangover cures with tomato juice and oysters and anchovies and god only knows what else, and he had to run to the bathroom to puke just as he had back then. _Thanks, Coop_ , Harry thought as he knelt in front of the toilet. _You can “cure” my hangover just as well even when you’re not here._

While Harry cautiously stood back up and rummaged through the medicine cabinet for some aspirin, getting ready to lunge back over to the toilet just in case, he reflected that at least his plan, if he could call it that, had worked. His sleep last night had been the heavy, dreamless oblivion of the completely inebriated. He needed to be more careful about drinking in public, though. Later today he would stock up on some bottles of whiskey so that he could just drink at home next time. He’d drive to the liquor store on the Idaho state line; no need to get everyone in town talking about his alleged drinking problem more than they already did. This time, Coop wasn’t there to keep him from making stupid mistakes, so he was on his own. Steeling himself, he tried to get his grief over Coop’s disappearance under control, because maybe he had no reason to be this upset. As far as he knew, Coop was just fine. Maybe there was a perfectly rational explanation for why he had left his job and everyone he cared about and disappeared. Maybe the dream didn’t mean anything, or the way Albert said Coop had been acting in Savannah, or the fact that all this had started to happen on the anniversary of Laura Palmer’s death …

Harry shook himself. First things first. He drank an entire glass of water with the aspirin, showered, and dressed. He picked up his gun from the bedside table, which was now unloaded. _Yeah, Hawk, that was probably good thinking_. He called Hawk to ask, rather sheepishly, if he could get a ride over to the Roadhouse to get his truck. Hawk agreed, but only on the condition that they go to the Double R first for breakfast. “You’re buying,” he said, and hung up. Well, fair enough.

On the way over to the Double R, Hawk was quiet, which Harry very much appreciated. Neither his physical or emotional state was currently suited for much conversation. The diner was crowded, and Norma waved to them as they entered. “Good morning, Sheriff, Deputy. Isn’t it a gorgeous day?”

“Sure is,” Hawk agreed. Harry just grunted.

They ordered coffee, as well as a plate of bacon and eggs for Hawk. Harry just ordered toast, not willing to risk anything else, and Norma smiled sympathetically. “I heard you had a rough night.” Of course she heard, the whole town had probably heard by now. Harry grunted again. Norma said, “I hope you feel better soon,” and swept off to get their orders.

Hawk fixed his gaze on Harry and leaned forward slightly. “Something bothering you, Harry?” he asked in his steady, even way.

Harry debated telling him about Coop but decided against it. It could wait until he actually had something to tell. “Nothing much. My brother, you know. Same old, same old.”

Hawk nodded and left it at that. Harry knew that Hawk was aware of his issues with his brother, so that would have seemed like a plausible explanation for his behavior the previous night. The rest of the breakfast passed uneventfully, although Harry gritted his teeth every time someone passed by their table and remarked on what a beautiful day it was, it was just like spring, they never get weather this nice until late April or even early May, not a cloud in the sky...

Hawk then drove him to the Roadhouse and handed him his keys. Harry ducked into the bar to see if Stewie was there; he was, sweeping under all the tables with a push broom. Harry made a somewhat halting apology for his behavior last night, alluding vaguely to family problems, and Stewie waved him off good-naturedly. “Sheriff, you’ve broken up enough scenes in here that I don’t begrudge you causing one yourself on occasion.”

“Won’t happen again, Stewie,” said Harry, and left.

Next, he drove to the sheriff’s department. Lucy had weekends off, but he glanced into her office while he was walking by reception and saw that the indicator light for an incoming message was blinking on the fax machine. Curious, he went in and picked up the sheath of perforated paper that had printed and saw to his surprise that it was an FBI case file for a murder in Savannah. _Damn, Albert, that was quick._ On the cover sheet, Albert had scrawled a handwritten note, “You can’t imagine the justification I had to invent for you to get you access to this file. Enjoy.”

Harry brought the file into the conference room, where Lucy had set up the usual towers of donuts before leaving the day before. He made coffee, grabbed a chocolate frosted, and settled in to read.

Hours later, he set the file down and leaned back. He had to agree with Albert on this one. He could see no connection between this case and Laura Palmer. The victim, despite being the same age as Laura Palmer when she died, was not in high school, but was a prostitute whose friend had reported her missing. The only reason the FBI was involved was because the girl’s body had drifted across the Savannah River, where some fishermen had discovered it in the marshes on the South Carolina side. Instead of dying from blood loss like Laura had, this girl had been strangled. There were no cryptic messages left on the body or at the crime scene, no hint of anything supernatural. To Harry, it looked like a depressingly mundane case of a john who had gone too far satisfying his kink and then panicked and disposed of the body. But he had to be missing something, because Coop had seen something in this case, and Coop really was the best lawman Harry had ever known. With a deep ache, Harry wished like hell that Coop was here now to talk him through it. He never tired of hearing the seemingly random digressions, the frankly insane leaps of logic that somehow always worked out, the way that Coop put his whole being into understanding, questioning, finding the truth. It was really something to see. Harry had been amazed by Coop from the very first day of their working together, and he had never stopped being amazed.

With a renewed determination, Harry read through the entire file again, this time deliberately trying not to look at it in the way he or Albert or any other normal law-enforcement officer would, but as Coop would: looking for small things, numbers, patterns, anything weird. He temporarily fixated on the description in a witness statement by one of the fishermen of a duck that had landed on the deck of their boat and brazenly grabbed a just-caught fish out of his hand moments before the body was discovered. It seemed like the kind of weird detail that no one but Coop would give a second thought to. So Harry gave it a second thought, and a third, but could not find any significance in the duck. Try as he might, there was just no getting inside Special Agent Dale Cooper’s mind. He really was one of a kind.

Glancing at his watch, Harry saw that he had spent most of the day trying to make sense of the file. He needed to get to the liquor store soon before it closed. He left the department, bringing the file with him, and drove over to the state line, feeling vaguely guilty about his need to hide his drinking habits from his neighbors. Not so guilty that he didn’t buy two bottles of Jack to bring home, but still.

In his kitchen, Harry set the two bottles down on the table, next to the file. He stared at the bottles and the file for a few minutes. He could feel the familiar tug, the desire to let his mind dissolve in the whiskey, made stronger by his frustration by his inability to make any sense of the Savannah case. But something was holding him back. _Where does Coop always get those clues from? From giants, and dwarves, from symbols on cave walls and messages intercepted from outer space. From visions, from dreams._ Harry knew that Coop was special, that he had some sort of access to levels of reality that were inaccessible to regular schmucks like him. But he had had that dream, and it had meant something. If he was going to think like Coop, he couldn’t cut himself off from access to other worlds, or his subconscious, or wherever insight might come from. He had to leave himself open. And that meant no drinking.

Resolutely, Harry put the bottles in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. They would still be there if he needed them, but he was going to stay sober tonight. He spent several more hours flipping through the file, this time not looking for anything in particular, just letting his eye run across the pages, keeping his mind blank.

* * *

_Back in the fractal world of shapes and the pounding drumbeat. But this time it was cold, a cold that was not the mere absence of heat, but an active, malevolent force. Coop appeared before him again. Once again, his shadow stretched out behind him. But when Coop took a step forward toward Harry, his shadow was oddly delayed in following him, like it had somehow detached itself from its caster and become its own creature. The cold that had suffused the space seemed to emanate from the shadow, as if it were some sort of anti-sun._

_“Coop. Where are you?” Harry needed him to answer, needed something that made sense, that he could follow up on._

_“Hidden with the heat in the ice. In the heart of the monster.”_

_Well. that wasn’t really helpful. He reached out for Coop, like he had last time. This time, he felt Coop’s shoulders in this grip, but the cold was unbearable, cold enough that it burned in a way that was indistinguishable from heat, and something was happening to Coop, he was shattering apart like glass in a broken mirror, and Harry tried to pull him out of that cold geometric world, but there was nothing to hold onto but shards…_

* * *

Another harsh awakening. Harry threw off the blankets; despite the cold he had felt in the dream, he was sweating. He turned his head and looked out the window, where the rare March sunshine was streaming through again. Now, at least, he had something. The heart of the monster. Coop had said that in both dreams. It must mean something, must somehow lead to Coop. Rolling out of bed, he resolved to spend the day figuring it out.

After a shower and coffee, he headed straight to the Bookhouse. He had no idea where to start, but he could see if there was anything in the books there. He pulled an encyclopedia off the shelf; it had no entry for “heart of the monster,” but he hadn’t really been expecting it to be that easy. The trouble with the Bookhouse, he reflected as he stared at the shelves, was that there were so many damn books. How would he know which was the right one, if there even was anything helpful here? _Be like Coop_ , he told himself. _Use your intuition_. He walked along the rows of shelves, letting his fingers trace along the spines of the books and his eyes scan the titles. _Of Human Bondage. Field Guide to North American Birds. Around the World in Eighty Days. Chess for Dummies. The Ripest Cherry_ (Harry had to pick up that one out of curiosity; it was a bodice-ripping romance novel, with a cover showing a busty blond girl leaning against a tree and gazing at a square-jawed man riding his horse through an orchard. Harry shook his head. _Who put that here?_ ) As he was returning it to its place on the shelf, his gaze fell on the book next to it. _The Tibetan Book of the Dead_. Well, he knew who put _that_ one here. Coop had been reading it when he was in town last year, and he must have decided to donate it to the Bookhouse collection when he was done. Harry grabbed it and sat in one of the armchairs to flip through it. He didn’t know if it would contain anything relevant to what he was looking for, but it was relevant to Coop, so that was something.

Flipping through the _Book of the Dead_ , Harry saw that it was a scholarly edition of what was apparently a twelfth-century text, with Tibetan script and the English translation on facing pages. To Harry, the English was nearly as incomprehensible as the Tibetan. But apparently it had made sense to Coop, because annotations in his handwriting were scattered around the margins. Next to “ _The Heart-Mantra of Dependent Origination, which liberates the enduring continuum of phenomena and induces the appearance of multiplying relics and rainbow lights…_ ”, Coop had scrawled, “Must meditate upon later.” Below “ _If you do not achieve an undaunted confident security now, What point is there in being alive, O living creature?”_ was written simply “Profound insight.” That one Harry could at least understand, and if Coop didn’t exude undaunted confident security, no one did. Another passage, which Coop had not annotated but had underlined emphatically, read _“Abandon your notions of the past, without attributing a temporal sequence! Cut off your mental associations regarding the future, without anticipation! Rest in a spacious modality, without clinging to the present.”_ Yeah, that sounded like advice Coop would follow. Harry found himself smiling as he leafed through. Holding this book that Coop had read so carefully, seeing his handwritten notes, was like getting a peek into Coop’s mind. There was a joy in feeling so close to him, but also a dull ache at his absence. He really did miss him like hell.

Engrossed in his reading, Harry flinched in surprise as the door to the Bookhouse suddenly swung open. It was Hawk. “Good morning, Harry,” Hawk said. “What are you doing here?”

Again, Harry hesitated, but decided against going into the details right now. “Came to take a look at the Peterson’s Guide,” he said, gesturing at the bird field book on the shelf. “Thought I might have seen a lark bunting yesterday, but they don’t normally cross to this side of the Rockies, so I wanted to see what else it could be. Then I got distracted by another book.”

Hawk nodded. “Yeah. Just finished the book I was reading and came in to swap it for something else.” He was holding a small paperback book, but his hand was covering the title. He also looked slightly shifty, which made Harry wonder if maybe Hawk was the one reading the romance novels.

As Hawk went up to one of the shelves, Harry turned away in case he wanted privacy in his choice of reading material. As Harry looked back at the pages of the _Book of the Dead_ , it occurred to him that maybe Hawk would have something to say about the phrase he had heard in his dream and, in any event, he would be unlikely to ask too many questions about it. Hawk was good that way.

“Hey, Hawk, you ever hear of something called the Heart of the Monster?”

Hawk’s attention seemed to be on the bookshelves as he hunted for something specific, but he answered offhandedly, “Sure. It’s in Idaho. About a five-hour drive.”

“You mean it’s a place?” Harry was taken aback. He hadn’t really expected that Hawk would know what the hell he was talking about.

“To the Nez Perce, it’s where the world began. Kind of like your Garden of Eden.”

“Why is it called that?”

Hawk turned away from the bookshelf. “Coyote was building a fish ladder down at Celilo Falls. Someone asked why he was doing that, when all the people were gone. Coyote stopped, because he was doing for the people, so he went up the Snake River, then the Clearwater. Suddenly, he came over a ridge and saw the monster, the biggest thing he had ever seen. Its head was the size of a mountain, and away off somewhere melting into the horizon was its giant body. Coyote said to the monster, ‘Now you inhale me, for already you have swallowed all the people, so swallow me too lest I become lonely.’ The monster inhaled like a mighty wind, and Coyote dashed right into its mouth. He walked down the monster’s throat and found its heart. Coyote started a fire and the monster began to choke on the smoke. Then Coyote took his knife and cut away at the monster’s heart. The heart was still just hanging by a thread when the knife broke, so Coyote threw himself on the heart and tore it away with his hands. As the monster convulsed in its death throes, Coyote told the people inside to kick out all the bones. They all went outside and Coyote began carving up the great monster and dealing parts of the body to various parts of the country all over the land, toward the sunrise, toward the sunset, toward the warmth, toward the cold. And in doing so he gave names to the people in those places, the ones who would become the Coeur d’Alene, the Flathead, the Crow, the Sioux, and my own people the Pend Oreille. Fox asked Coyote why he had given away all of the body to faraway lands and kept nothing for this place. So Coyote took some water and washed his hands of the monster’s blood, and he sprinkled the land with the bloody water. And the people of that land became the Nez Perce.” With that, Hawk turned back to the bookshelf.

Harry reflected on this. He didn’t know what the creation story of the Nez Perce had to do with Coop, but it was a better lead than anything else he had. “And this is an actual place? As in, a physical location that you can go to?”

“Yeah. It’s off Highway 12, near Kamiah. They used to have a gift shop across from the parking lot, but I think it’s closed.” Hawk had apparently found what he was looking for, because he was pulling a book off the shelf.

“Thanks, Hawk.”

“Sure, Harry. See you tomorrow.” With that, Hawk left. Harry looked at his watch. It was 10 am. Five-hour drive? He could be there that afternoon.


	3. Chapter 3

Driving south on Highway 195 from Spokane, Harry considered that he was spending his Sunday on a ten-hour round-trip drive to a Native American sacred site based on nothing more substantial than a dream. Definitely not the kind of thing he would have done before meeting Coop. The _Tibetan Book of the Dead_ sat on the seat beside him, like a passenger along for the journey. Harry hadn’t wanted to leave it, feeling an irrational attachment to his only tangible connection to his friend. At Lewiston, he turned east on Highway 12 and began following it up the churning rapids of the Clearwater River. In Kamiah, a town even smaller than Twin Peaks whose skyline was dominated by a sawmill and an Indian casino, the highway crossed the river, and a couple of miles past that was a brown sign indicating a turnout for “HEART OF THE MONSTER (timné pe)”. Harry pulled into the small gravel parking lot and got out. Hawk’s directions had been good. He was even right about the gift shop; there was a small building across the highway, with signs for “Indian jewelry” and “fry bread”, but it was shuttered. There were no other cars parked in the lot, and no sign of anyone else being around. He had the place to himself. He quashed the slight prickling of disappointment that arose; after all, it wasn’t like he really thought Coop would be hanging out here in the outskirts of Kamiah, Idaho.

Harry wasn’t sure what he had been expecting the Heart of the Monster to look like, but he knew it when he saw it. A short distance away from the road, across a grassy field, was a mound, maybe 30 feet high, with sides that sloped so steeply that the thing resembled a baking-soda volcano that a kid would take to a science fair. It sure didn’t look like any natural feature Harry had ever seen, so he could understand why the Nez Perce had attached special significance to it. There was a paved path that led across the field to the mound, so Harry walked along it. The mound itself was surrounded by a low wooden fence. A sign on the fence stated, “Please keep out. This site is sacred to the Nez Perce.”

Up close, he could see that the mound was composed of a mix of grass-covered soil and large boulders. He walked the circumference of the fence, examining the mound from all sides, but didn’t see anything of particular note. Just a mound of dirt and rocks. After one circumambulation, he continued to the back side of the mound again, so that his view to the highway was blocked. He stopped and stared at the Heart of the Monster, wondering what to do. Despite his association with the Bookhouse Boys and his longtime vague awareness of something weird lurking in the woods around Twin Peaks, he had never really felt comfortable with all the mumbo-jumbo. He had unquestioningly followed Coop on every one of his supernatural quests and hunches, true, but that was only because he had absolute trust in Coop. On his own, standing beside this heap of earth in Idaho, he just felt silly. Besides that, he really didn’t want to disrespect the Nez Perce by trespassing on their sacred site; god knows they’d had to put up with enough from the white man. But he had come all this way, and he wasn’t going to give up on finding Coop, so there really was only one thing to do. He reached into his pocket, to make sure he had his badge on him (if anyone came along, he could flash it and claim he was here on law-enforcement business, hoping that no one would examine it closely enough to see that he was nowhere near his jurisdiction). Taking one last look around to make sure he was alone, he silently apologized to Coyote and whatever other New Perce gods might be offended and stepped over the fence.

As Harry climbed the mound, clouds scooted across the sun, and the breeze stiffened. The day, which had started off calm and sunny, now had the restless feel of a change in the weather. While climbing, Harry kept his eyes fixed on the ground, but didn’t see anything of interest. At the very top of the mound, however, there was a boulder, larger and flatter than most of the others. And it had a petroglyph scratched into it. Symbols. It looked like writing.

Harry pulled out the notepad and pencil he kept in his jacket pocket. Placing a sheet of paper over the symbols, he scribbled over them with the pencil to make a rough rubbing of their shape. Taking another quick look around, he saw nothing else, so retreated back down the Heart of the Monster and over the fence. Walked back to his truck, got in, headed back down Highway 12.

As he drove, Harry was lost in thought. The symbols did look like writing, but he knew for a fact that the Nez Perce didn’t have a written language. So what were the symbols doing there? There was something else too. The style of writing looked familiar, like something he had seen only recently –

Harry hit the brakes as the realization slammed into him. Hastily, he pulled onto the shoulder and grabbed the _Book of the Dead_ from the passenger seat. Opening it, he compared the script from the book to the rubbing he had made of the petroglyph. Tibetan. The reason the symbols looked so familiar was because they were Tibetan script, which he had been looking at only this morning. And Coop – Coop was in Tibet. Harry didn’t know why there were Tibetan symbols on a Nez Perce sacred site in Idaho, and he didn’t know what any of this had to do with his dreams or with whatever had happened in Savannah, but he did know with a sudden, fierce certainty that Tibet was where Coop had gone.

Easing back onto the highway and continuing his drive back down the Clearwater, Harry felt angry at himself for not thinking of it sooner. Coop had always wanted to go to Tibet, he knew that. Harry remembered that terrible night last year when Coop had been shot. When he and his deputies got to Room 315 of the Great Northern, the door was ajar and Coop was lying on the floor covered in blood, saying weakly, “There they are.” Harry felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach; how long had Coop been lying there waiting for them? Harry had yelled at Hawk to call Jimmy, the chief of Twin Peaks’ volunteer fire and emergency medical service, who also moonlighted as a drummer in the Timberellas, which he claimed to be the most popular punk-rock band in the intermountain Northwest (Doc Haywood occasionally scolded Jimmy for using his ambulance to transport his extensive drum kit to gigs, to which Jimmy replied that his own pickup truck wasn’t big enough). Harry had told Andy to get towels from the bathroom, partly so Harry could use them to stem the bleeding, but mostly to keep Andy busy so he wouldn’t start crying. Dropping to his knees next to Coop, Harry had seen the two bullet holes that had been caught by the vest ( _Thank god Coop follows FBI procedure_ ) and the one that hadn’t, from which blood was soaking Coop’s white dress shirt. Grabbing the towel Andy had lobbed at him, Harry had held it against the wound with as much pressure as he could, trying to slow down the bleeding. Coop had groaned at that, and Harry apologized, “Sorry, Coop. You’ve lost a lot of blood, I’m trying to get the bleeding under control.” Coop had replied placidly, “I know, Harry. Thank you.” He had placed his hand on Harry’s wrist, as if reassuring _him_. As sheriff, Harry had seen more than a few gunshot victims (mostly hunting accidents, some resulting from bar fights or domestic violence), but he had never seen anyone that calm after being shot. He had felt the need to offer comfort anyway, not knowing what else to do, so he said, “You’re going to be fine, Coop.” Coop had responded, “I hope so. I haven’t even been to Tibet yet,” and then passed out. Jimmy had arrived a few minutes later (a remarkably fast response time, as the Timberellas had had a local gig at the Roadhouse that night), and Harry and his deputies had helped load Coop onto the stretcher and into the ambulance. Hawk had driven the ambulance to the hospital while Harry rode in the back with Coop and Jimmy. As Jimmy began hooking up IVs of fluids and morphine, and a stray cymbal shifted from side to side across the floor with the vehicle’s movement, making a dull clang against the wall with every turn, Harry had hoped fervently that what he had told Coop was true, that he would be fine, because he had only known Coop for a week at that point but already knew he wanted to keep him around.

As he pulled into Lewiston and hung a right on Highway 195, Harry pulled his thoughts back to the present. Yes, given that Coop’s immediate reaction to being shot had been to express his regret that he hadn’t been to Tibet yet, it was stupid of Harry not to think of that immediately. Especially since something in Savannah had freaked him out, it made sense that he would seek some sort of spiritual guidance in Tibet. Why he would quit the FBI and leave without telling Harry or Albert or anyone was another matter, but that could wait.

Harry drove up his darkened driveway around nine and brought the _Book of the Dead_ and his petroglyph rubbing into the house with him. Sitting at the kitchen table, on a sudden whim, he opened the book to some of the passages he had read earlier. “ _If you do not achieve an undaunted confident security now, What point is there in being alive, O living creature?”_ Looking across at the Tibetan script on the facing page, he saw one character that was an exact match to one of the characters in the petroglyph. Flipping to another section of the book, he saw another match, this time in “ _The Heart-Mantra of Dependent Origination_ ”. So whatever the petroglyph symbols said, they had words in common with those two passages. Harry had no way of knowing which words were which in the Tibetan lines of the _Book of the Dead_ , but he was willing to bet that the ones that were shared with the petroglyph were “creature” and “heart”.

* * *

Monday morning came cool and drizzly. Upon arriving at the department, Harry grabbed coffee and a chocolate frosted donut from the conference room, then went to his office and called Albert’s number, telling the secretary who answered that it was Sheriff Truman calling from Twin Peaks. He was on hold for just a few seconds before Albert answered with a gruff, “Have you heard from him?”

“No. But I know where he is.”

A pause. “Well?”

“Tibet.”

“Hmm.” Albert gave it some thought. “That does make sense. Tibet is the only place besides your quaint hamlet that Coop never shuts up about. But how do you know for sure?”

“I’ll tell you if you really want me to, but you’re not going to like it.”

Albert groaned. “Yes, fine, tell me, god help us.”

“Something I heard in a dream, which led me to a Native American sacred site, where I found a petroglyph etched with Tibetan writing.”

“You’re right, I don’t like it. Why is everything that happens in that town of yours so completely absurd?”

“Beats me.”

“Well, if we’re going to go down this rabbit hole, I suppose the next step is to have that petroglyph translated.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I already know what it says, but I want it confirmed. I was thinking of contacting Gonzaga University and seeing if any of the professors there can read Tibetan.”

“Yes, you _could_ waste your time pestering the faculty of a small Catholic college in the Pacific Northwest to find out if there are any Tibetan experts among them, or you could simply take advantage of the expertise within the agency.”

“You have Tibetan experts in the FBI?”

“Sheriff, we are the Federal Bureau of _Investigation_.” Albert sounded affronted.

“Okay, fine. I’ll fax you the image of the petroglyph so your guys can take a look.”

“Wonderful. By the way, have you looked at the Savannah case file yet?”

“Yeah, thanks for sending it so quickly. I’m with you, though. I couldn’t see anything in that case that was connected to Laura Palmer or anything that would have set Coop off.”

“Hmm.” Harry thought Albert sounded disappointed, which meant maybe, despite his claims to the contrary, he had thought Harry might have been able to see something in the case that the FBI had missed. Maybe Albert didn’t think he was completely useless after all. “That means we still don’t know why Coop resigned and went off to Tibet.”

“I’ll be sure to ask him about it when I see him.”

“Sheriff.” Albert’s voice was now, for him, gentle. “There’s no indication that he intends to come back. Quitting the FBI, giving up his apartment … this might be a permanent move.”

“Maybe. But I’m going to Tibet to find him.” Until he said it aloud, Harry hadn’t been consciously aware that that was what he was planning to do, but of course he was going to Tibet, he had known it as soon as he had slammed on his brakes with the realization of where Coop was.

“ _You’re_ going to _Tibet_?” All trace of gentleness was now gone from Albert’s voice and he was back in full-on snark mode. “Have you ever even traveled internationally?”

“I go to Canada more often than I go to the movies.”

“I mean a _real_ foreign country. Are you, with your Pendleton flannels and cowboy hat, actually traveling to the other side of the world to a remote region occupied by an authoritarian government to, what? Wander around and ask the locals in your fluent Tibetan if they’ve seen any expat ex-FBI agents? How will you even find him when you get there?”

_It doesn’t matter. I have to find him, he’s in some sort of trouble and needs my help. And even if he doesn’t, I can’t let him deal with whatever happened in Savannah on his own. I can’t let him just disappear and never see him again._ But Harry didn’t want to say that aloud, not to Albert. So instead he just said, “That’s what I need to figure out first. And I will.” The more doubt Albert expressed, the more confident Harry felt. “As soon as I know exactly where he is and how to get there, I’ll be on my way.”

Albert scoffed but didn’t try to argue any more. “Well, send me that Tibetan writing and I’ll get it analyzed right away.”

“Thanks.” They hung up and Harry went to give Lucy the petroglyph rubbing, which he had brought to work with him, with instructions to fax it to Albert’s office.

Returning to his own office, he sat at his desk and thought about Tibet. Albert was right about one thing, he probably was getting in over his head when it came to international travel. Other than Canada (which, he reluctantly conceded, didn’t count), he had never been to another country. He had never even been east of the Mississippi, rendering places like Philadelphia and New York City and Washington, DC, as foreign as China. When he’d been with Josie, they had talked about visiting Hong Kong together, but even at the time he’d known deep down that was never going to happen, and of course it hadn’t.

Harry also knew, from dimly remembered conversations with Coop, a bit about the political situation in Tibet, which was a source of constant righteous indignation on Coop’s part on behalf of the Tibetan people he so admired. Coop’s greatest wish was for the Dalai Lama to be allowed to return to Tibet and for his people to live in freedom. Given the growing international movement for a free Tibet, the Chinese government had been restricting international travel to the territory, not wanting journalists or activists to witness the human-rights abuses there. Come to think of it, Harry wondered how the hell Coop had managed to gain entry, especially because if the Chinese government had done even a cursory background check, they would have been able to discover Coop’s vocal support for the Tibetan cause. Well, maybe he’d better give some more thought to the logistics of the journey.

Rummaging through the phone book in his desk drawer, Harry found the number for the Chinese consulate in Seattle. He spent a frustrating twenty minutes being put on hold and redirected to various staff people before finally connecting with a professional-sounding woman who spoke decent English.

“How may I help you today?”

“I’m calling to inquire about the visa and entry requirements for Tibet.”

“You are an American citizen?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, no entry to Tibet Autonomous Region by foreigners. Chinese passport-holders only.”

“Is there any way an exception can be made? You see, I’m –”

“I’m sorry, no exceptions. Have a good day.” _Click_.

_Damn_. Harry missed Josie. She probably would have at least been able to grease the wheels of the bureaucracy. Drumming his fingers, Harry thought for a moment, then rummaged through the box of business cards on his desk. A couple of years ago, he had had some dealings with the State Department over some human traffickers who were smuggling immigrants over the Canadian border in tractor-trailer trucks and driving them down to work in the fruit orchards around Wenatchee. What was the name of that lady from State he had worked with … there was her card. Nicole Henley. It took a while to reach her (apparently she had moved to a different office within State since Harry had last spoken to her), but eventually he had her on the phone.

“What can I do for you, Sheriff Truman?”

“I’m hoping you can help me figure out how to convince the Chinese government to grant me entry to the Tibet Autonomous Region.”

“Tibet? What do you want to go there for?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“Give me the short version.” Nicole was always to the point, Harry had liked that about working with her.

“Okay, I have reason to believe that a friend of mine is there, and he may need my help, so I need to find him.”

“Wow, must be some friend.” _He is_ , Harry silently agreed. “China is a tough nut to crack, especially where Tibet is concerned. It’s not my area of expertise, but I have a colleague who may be able to help. Her name is Samantha Colson. I’ll transfer you over to her direct line.”

“Thanks.” After a surprisingly brief hold, Samantha Colson answered. Harry went through the short version of his story again.

Her reply was not encouraging. “Well, now is an especially sensitive time for the Chinese government in general, after Tiananmen Square last year. And they’re always touchy about access to Tibet. They don’t even allow foreign tourists, and I don’t see them making an exception for a personal matter like this.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Harry said despondently.

“But wait a minute. Nicole said you work in law enforcement? Look, this is off the record, but maybe you could come up with a work-related reason to go to Tibet.”

“I doubt it. I’m the sheriff of Twin Peaks, Washington.”

“Where?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, sorry. That’s all I’ve got. Wish I had a better answer for you.”

Harry thanked her and hung up, feeling depressed. Was he really going to be unable to find Coop because of political tensions? Maybe he could go to India or Nepal instead and sneak across the border. _Don’t get ahead of yourself_. He had gotten this far by trusting his instincts, and he would have to just keep doing that.


	4. Chapter 4

Tuesday afternoon, Albert called him in his office. “Well, the Tibetan experts looked at your petroglyph – I didn’t tell them where it came from, because I didn’t want to sound as idiotic as you did when you told me – and they translated it.”

“What does it say?”

“Apparently there’s not an exact translation in English, but it’s something like ‘the creature’s heart’ or ‘the beast’s heart’ –”

“The heart of the monster,” Harry said. He _knew_ it.

“Yeah, something like that. But there’s more. Apparently, it’s also the name of a monastery in Tibet, Hrdaya Purusa. It’s one of the few Buddhist monasteries still operating in Tibet. Most of Tibet’s monks have joined the Dalai Lama in exile in Dharamsala, India, but the Chinese government has turned a blind eye to this particular monastery because it’s so remote.”

“That’s where Coop is,” Harry said excitedly. Now he was getting somewhere.

“If you say so, Sheriff. It does sound like the kind of place he’d go. Are you still set on this ill-conceived notion of traveling there?”

“Yup.”

“Well,” Albert’s voice had taken on a tone of malicious glee. “You’ll be interested to know that this particular monastery can be reached only on foot, a three days’ walk from the nearest road.”

“That’s fine by me, Albert. I grew up in Twin Peaks. I’m what you city slickers call outdoorsy.”

“In the modest topography of your bucolic Pacific Northwest ranges, sure. Now we’re talking about the _Himalayas_. The monastery itself is at an elevation of over 16,000 feet, and you have to cross an 18,000-foot pass to get there. Do you know what the atmospheric pressure at 18,000 feet is relative to average sea-level pressure?”

Harry admitted that he did not.

“ _Half_ ,” Albert informed him. “That means half as much oxygen getting to your already barely functioning brain.”

“Well, thanks for the information, Albert. Hey, there is one other thing I wanted to ask your help with.”

“Sure thing, Sheriff,” Albert said magnanimously.

“Since the Chinese government doesn’t allow international travelers to access Tibet, it looks like my best bet for gaining entry would be for law-enforcement reasons. Think you could help me out with that?”

“You want me to get _you_ –”

“Yeah, yeah, get me, a hayseed sheriff from North Bumfuck, some sort of international law-enforcement credential. Can you do it?” Harry didn’t feel like being subjected to one of Albert’s rants at the moment.

A put-upon sigh. “Fine, I’ll try. No promises. By the way, I also had the Tibetan guys mail you a map of the region around the monastery. Hopefully that will keep you from wandering off a cliff.”

“Thanks, Albert. You’re not such a bad guy after all.”

“Shut up.” _Click_.

* * *

The days went by, and Harry started to prepare in earnest for his trip, despite not knowing how or when he would get an entry permit to Tibet. At first he called Albert every couple of days to check on his progress, but Albert grew increasingly annoyed with his calls – “don’t call me, Sheriff, I’ll call you!” – so Harry decided to lay off for a while. He had plenty of other things to do, anyway. He spent hours poring over the detailed topographic map Albert’s Tibetan experts had sent over, upon which they had helpfully marked the monastery and the route there, probably at Albert’s request. Leaving from the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway, the trail followed a river valley, then charged up the densely packed contour lines to the 18,000-foot pass Albert had mentioned, then dropped just as steeply into the bowl-shaped basin where the monastery was located, with higher peaks looming above on all sides. It did look like imposing terrain, but Harry wasn’t worried. Apparently, there were a couple of small villages along the way, which the FBI experts had annotated to indicate that lodging and food was available there. So he wouldn’t have to carry a tent or a lot of food, which would make the hiking easier. He did, however, wonder if his current backpack, battered from years of Pacific Northwest rain and encounters with brush on hunting trips, was up to the task. Accordingly, one Saturday he drove to Spokane to hit up the outdoor store.

Strolling past the fishing rods and hunting rifles, Harry found a reasonably priced external-frame pack that met his needs. Grabbing it, he ambled around the store thinking about what else he might need that he didn’t already have. His boots were still in good shape and, just as any self-respecting Twin Peaks citizen would, he had a healthy supply of fleece, wool, and Gore-Tex garments. Pausing by a rack of down vests, he decided to grab one. That high up, it was likely to be cold even during the day, but Harry tended to overheat easily while hiking, so the vest seemed like a good compromise. He remembered Coop had worn a vest like that last year during his brief suspension from the FBI, when he had put away his suit and started dressing in flannels like a local.

On his way to the cash register, Harry abruptly stopped at a display with a sign reading, “Great coffee in the great outdoors!” He wondered if Coop had found a way to get his caffeine fix while at a Tibetan monastery. The display included several kinds of lightweight coffee-brewing devices. Harry grabbed a small French press. On the shelf below was an assortment of insulated travel mugs. His eye fell on a dark green one emblazoned with “The Evergreen State” and an outline of a Douglas fir. He grinned and grabbed the mug as well. This would be a perfect gift for Coop.

Driving into work the following Monday, Harry thought about one other thing he should bring with him. Despite Albert having mocked him by asking if he planned to ask the locals if they had seen Coop, he thought it actually was a good idea to have Coop’s photo with him. That way, even though Harry didn’t speak the language, he would probably be able to make it clear who he was looking for in case Coop wasn’t at the monastery when he arrived. The problem was, Harry didn’t have any photos of Coop, which seemed odd in retrospect. He supposed he could ask Albert if he could send him the file photo for Coop’s FBI ID, but he didn’t really feel like asking Albert for any more favors. Besides, he knew where he might be able to find a photo of Coop.

Upon arriving to the office, he asked Lucy if he could look through her wedding photos. Lucy agreed enthusiastically; she didn’t seem to think it was strange that he was asking, more like it was strange that he hadn’t _already_ asked to see them. So the following morning, as promised, while Harry sat in the conference room with his coffee and donut, Lucy came up behind him and dropped a massive photo album onto the table. “Thanks, Lucy,” Harry said, opening it.

The photo album had probably over a hundred pages, and Lucy had stuffed photos into each one. Harry sighed. This could take a while. Instead of paying for a wedding photographer, Andy had enlisted his cousin Elwood to take the photos. Elwood was apparently not a great photographer even under the best circumstances, with many of the shots being blurry, weirdly framed, or overexposed. Also, Harry distinctly remembered Elwood drinking more than his share of champagne at the reception, and the photos from later in the evening were even worse, including some avant-garde close-up shots of people’s feet and one of a floral arrangement that had been knocked over onto an abandoned plate with a half-eaten mini-quiche on it. Lucy had apparently not exercised much editorial oversight in deciding which photos to include in the album.

Still, Harry found himself enjoying the photos. The wedding had been in June. The couple had had a big fight about that, because Andy had wanted to wait until late July or August, when the weather became reliably clear and sunny, while Lucy had been adamant about holding the wedding as soon as possible, before she became “as big as a whale.” So June had been the compromise. The notoriously fickle weather gods of Washington had smiled on the happy couple, because despite following a week of “Juneuary” conditions – the local name for the cool and drizzly weather that often persisted into early summer – the day of the wedding itself had felt like August, with warm sun and bright blue sky. Coop had taken a red-eye from Philadelphia, arrived at Sea-Tac early on the morning of the wedding, and driven his rental car the six hours to Twin Peaks, meeting Harry at the Double R for lunch. Coop had practically been buzzing with joy as he immediately launched into praising the scenery he had seen along Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass, asking Harry the names of the giant snowcapped mountains to the north (Mount Baker) and to the south (Mount Rainier). He had gotten even more excited when he learned that the smaller rounded peak he had glimpsed just southwest of Rainier was Mount St. Helens, the volcano that had erupted spectacularly just ten years before. (“An erupting volcano, Harry, can you even imagine?” “Yeah, I can easily imagine it, we had to use the snowplow to clear the ash off all the roads in town…”) At first Harry had marveled at Coop’s ability to be amazed at things he’d already seen, before realizing that, oh yeah, he probably hadn’t seen the Cascades when he was here in the spring. The mountains only came “out” during clear weather, which was rare indeed in February and March. There was no place more magical than the Pacific Northwest in summer, with pink rhododendrons and salmonberries brightening the dark forests while the high peaks retained their snowy whiteness against the blue sky, the pine trees breathing out an earthy smell, sunsets that seemed to last for hours, and not a rain cloud in sight. Harry had been glad that Coop was finally getting to experience it.

After lunch (complete, of course, with pie: “Far and away the best strawberry rhubarb I’ve ever had, you can _taste_ the sunshine on those strawberries!”), they had gone to Harry’s house to change for the wedding. Coop had his movie-star tuxedo, and Harry had his much less flattering rented one. Harry had fumbled with his bow tie until Coop stepped up and expertly tied it for him. Then they had headed over to the Great Northern for the wedding, which was held on the platform overlooking the falls (Ben Horne, who was still intent on being good, had given the couple a steep discount on the venue rental).

It had turned out that the edge of a giant waterfall was maybe not the most auspicious location for a wedding ceremony, given that no one could hear a word the minister said over the roar of the falling water and Lucy’s ring was almost lost when Andy dropped it from his shaking hands and it bounced perilously close to the edge of the overlook before Hawk made a graceful save. Other than that, it had gone off without a hitch. The reception and party had gone on until the wee hours of the morning. The whole town had been there, as was the custom in Twin Peaks. Inviting everyone, whether you liked them or not, was a smart pre-emptive move, because they were going to show up regardless of whether they were invited or not, and if they weren’t invited they were much more likely to cause a scene. Norma had made a beautiful cake the size of Whitetail Mountain, Nadine (newly divorced from Big Ed and back to dating Mike) had almost killed Shelly during her athletic leap to catch the bride’s bouquet, and Donna had spent the whole night making out with James (who had just returned from his motorcycle trip through Mexico and sported a new Day of the Dead skeleton tattoo on his bicep).

Now, Harry smiled as he leafed through the photos. He found a few with Coop in them, but none he could use. One showed Audrey dancing with Coop, but his back was to the camera. From the dreamy smile on her face, it was clear that Audrey had never quite gotten over her crush on Coop even though she now had a boyfriend, Jack or something. Another photo was of Coop gallantly drinking a toast to the Log Lady’s log at her request, but his face was half cut off by the frame of the photo, and anyway that wasn’t necessarily an image Harry wanted to carry around Tibet. Finally, Harry came across what must have been the best photo Elwood ever took, no doubt completely by accident. It showed Harry and Coop standing shoulder-to-shoulder, holding champagne flutes, faces turned toward each other. Coop appeared to be in the middle of saying something that Harry appeared to be laughing at. Harry couldn’t remember the exact moment, so had no idea what they had been talking about, but just seeing the image of Coop’s face filled him with a warm glow.

“You can keep that photo of you and Agent Cooper if you want.” Lucy’s voice came from directly behind Harry, and he jumped a bit. She had come in without him noticing and was looking over his shoulder. “It’s a cute photo,” she went on. “You should keep it.”

Harry thanked her and took the photo home with him. He propped it up on his kitchen table, next to the topo map of his hiking route in Tibet that he had spread out.

* * *

It was mid-April when Albert finally called Harry in his office. “Congratulations, you’re now a consultant for Interpol,” Albert said by way of greeting.

“I am?”

“As far as the Chinese government knows, yes. You’re in pursuit of Pierre Lucien, a Swiss art thief. Why you, I have no idea. China doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US, but they are allowing you to transit through Tibet en route to India because supposedly this guy is hiding out in some remote region of the Himalayas. Never mind that our intel says he’s actually in the Cayman Islands, that’s the story we’re going with to finally get you your entry permit for Tibet.”

“Okay. Thanks for setting that up for me.”

“You can thank me by arresting Pierre Lucien if you do happen to run into him. So, I take it you are still planning to follow through on this quest of yours?”

“Yup.”

“Well, say hi to Coop for me when you see him.” Albert hung up, but Harry was gratified at the confidence he had expressed in saying _when_ you see him.

Now that Harry had his entry permit, it was time to start making actual travel arrangements. He called a very nice travel agent who was very confused by his explanation of where he was going and why he wanted to go there, but eventually she booked him a flight from Sea-Tac to Lhasa via Beijing during the first week of May. It wasn’t cheap, especially given the relatively short notice, so Harry put it on a credit card he hardly ever used. He also tried to get the travel agent to book him land transport from Lhasa to Gangga, but apparently the Tibetan bus system wasn’t something you could book in advance, so he would just have to figure it out when he got there.

Harry had booked a round-trip flight, but he left the return date open because he had no idea how long he would be in Tibet. He told everyone at the station that he was taking his two weeks of vacation time to go stay in his uncle’s cabin in Whitefish (which conveniently didn’t have a phone). He hoped two weeks would be long enough to find Coop, figure out what the hell was going on with him, and convince him to return to the US. But just in case, Harry figured he should let someone know where he was really going, and that someone should be Hawk. So the day before his flight, Harry called Hawk into his office and had him shut the door.

“Hawk, you know I’m putting you in charge while I’m gone.” Hawk nodded. “So I want you to know, I’m going to try to get back by the end of my two weeks, but it is possible that I’ll be, uh, delayed and you might have to cover for me a bit longer.”

“Because you’re not really going to Whitefish,” Hawk stated.

“No, I’m not.”

“Where are you going?”

“Tibet.”

Hawk nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “Give Agent Cooper my best.”

That night, Harry packed his new backpack with his hiking gear, making sure that the _Tibetan Book of the Dead_ , into whose pages he had placed his topo map and the photo of Coop, was tucked away securely in the top pocket. He checked and re-checked that he had his passport, plane tickets, entry permit, and Interpol credentials, which Albert had mailed to him. He lay in bed all night staring at the ceiling, completely incapable of sleep, mind racing. It didn’t seem real, what he was doing. He was not the kind of person who did this kind of thing. What kind of person _did_ do this kind of thing? Going off to a foreign country on the other side of the world, based on little more than a hunch, to find someone who seemed to want nothing more than to disappear. He was glad he couldn’t sleep, because he was not willing to invite in any dreams tonight.


	5. Chapter 5

The alarm clock was set to go off at 6 am, but Harry, still wide awake, turned it off at 5:59 out of spite. He got up, showered, grabbed his stuff (checking that he had his important documents yet again), and headed out. He had one more stop he wanted to make before heading to Seattle.

Norma had just opened the Double R when he walked in. “Good morning, Sheriff,” she smiled at him. “You’re up early. Heading to Whitefish?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. He ordered a plate special and ate quickly at the counter, chatting with Norma about what kind of fish he was likely to catch during his vacation, while she filled the salt and pepper shakers. When he was done, he took out his wallet to pay, but said casually, “Norma, do you have any cherry pie today?”

“Just got it out of the oven right before you came in.”

“I’ll get a slice of that for the road.”

“Sure.” She scooped it into a small cardboard takeout box.

Harry thought of something else. “Norma, could I maybe buy some of your ground coffee as well? Maybe a pound?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Harry, there’s nothing special about our coffee. I buy it from a wholesaler in Spokane.”

_But Coop likes it_. Harry wasn’t sure if it was the coffee beans themselves, or that they were freshly ground, or the way it was brewed, but he was quite sure that Coop liked the coffee at the Double R. He feigned indifference, shrugging. “Just realized I forgot to pack coffee to bring with me to Whitefish. This would save me a stop at a grocery store.”

“Okay.” Smiling, she filled a ziplock bag with coffee grounds. “Pie _and_ coffee. You’re not meeting Agent Cooper in Whitefish, are you?”

Harry laughed. “I wish.”

Back in his truck, Harry transferred the pie from the cardboard container to a more durable Tupperware one he had brought for that purpose and stuck it in his pack along with the coffee grounds. Then he pulled out of the parking lot. Just on the off-chance anyone was watching, he initially headed east out of town on the highway, then circled around on some back roads to start heading west toward Snoqualmie Pass.

He made good time on the drive. Even after arriving in Seattle and heading south toward Sea-Tac, the traffic was relatively light, so he ended up arriving at the airport almost four hours before his flight was scheduled to depart at 4 pm. He parked in the long-term lot, which charged him ten dollars a day for the privilege. It was a highway robbery, Harry reflected, but couldn’t be avoided, since it wasn’t like he could have asked anyone for a ride to the airport. Hawk was the only one who even knew he was flying anywhere, and Harry couldn’t have asked him to spend all day driving to Seattle and back, because he was too busy doing Harry’s job. Well, that was another reason to try to make it back within two weeks, since those parking fees would add up.

Before checking his backpack, Harry removed the _Book of the Dead_ with his map and photo inside to carry with him on the plane. He was skeptical about whether his pack would actually arrive in Lhasa at the same time he did, which was why he was also wearing his hiking boots for the flight. Everything else could be replaced if his luggage failed to show up.

Harry spent some time wandering around the airport and drinking coffee, then it was time to board his flight to Beijing. He was a bit surprised at the size of the plane when he stepped aboard. Having never been on a transcontinental flight before, he had never been on a plane that had a whole extra seating section in the middle. In a stroke of poor luck, it turned out that he was sitting in the middle of the middle section, with a woman holding a baby in her lap on his right and, on his left, an overweight man who fell asleep and started snoring as soon as he sat down. It was going to be a long twelve hours.

Soon after takeoff, Harry opened the _Book of the Dead_ and read some more passages, out of a mix of curiosity and not having anything better to do. He enjoyed reading Coop’s marginal notes, even if he had no idea what they meant most of the time, but he found the text itself equal parts confusing and boring. Maybe something was lost in translation. A lot of the text went on about something called bardo, which he gathered was some sort of intermediate state between life and death. He hadn’t thought he would be able to fall asleep, sitting as he was between the fussy baby and the snoring man, but after about an hour of reading, he felt his eyelids start to droop. Well, he was tired after not having slept the night before, so this would be a blessing if he could sleep and make the flight go by a bit faster. He set the book down, leaned back, and tried to draw in his elbows to minimize contact with his seatmates. Soon he was asleep.

* * *

_The roar of the plane’s engines faded out and the drumbeat faded in. The endlessly interbedded series of pulsing circles and squares surrounded him. Harry looked around. “Coop?” he called out._

_Coop appeared in front of him. As always, he was accompanied by the shadow, which this time was bigger than Coop and seemed to be steadily growing even larger. “What are you doing, Harry?”_

_“I’m on my way to find you.”_

_“I’m drifting with the mountains,” Coop said. “In the heart of the monster.” Blood appeared in the corners of his eyes, then streamed down his face. The shadow was expanding to fill all the available space, was pressing in on all sides, a crushing force, and Harry could feel it squeezing like a vice –_

* * *

Harry started awake with a gasp, causing the man sitting to his left to nearly spill his coffee and the woman on his right to jerk her baby away from him. Both of his seatmates glared at him, as if _he_ was the most annoying passenger in their row. Harry murmured an apology and, seeing a flight attendant making her way down the aisle with the beverage cart, waved her over. He ordered a whiskey neat. She poured it for him and then, probably out of pity, gave him the rest of the mini bottle as well. Harry slammed back most of the whiskey in just a few minutes to maximize its effectiveness, the woman with the baby watching disapprovingly. Normally Harry would avoid getting drunk on a plane, but he still had – he checked his watch – eight hours of flight time left, and he wanted to chase away any chance of dreaming again while in the air. He had hoped that the dreams would stop now that he was on his way to see Coop, but that one had been as disturbing as any of the others, and he really didn’t like having an audience for his nightmares.

The rest of the flight passed in agonizing slow motion. He managed to trick the flight attendant in the other aisle into also giving him a mini-bottle of liquor, so for a couple of hours he at least had a nice buzz going. But he let it wear off because he wanted to be sober when he got to Beijing, expecting that he would need his wits about him in a foreign airport. So he alternated between flipping through the _Book of the Dead_ , staring into space, and even resorting to reading the inane in-flight magazine. Damn, the world really was much bigger than he had ever been able to imagine if it took this long to fly across the Pacific.

Finally, the pilot came on the loudspeaker to announce that they were beginning their descent into Beijing. Harry felt a nervous excitement start to build up. He couldn’t see anything outside during the descent, because he was too far away from the window, so it was almost a surprise when he felt the plane’s wheels hit the tarmac. _I’m on another continent_ , he marveled. Something that had always just been a shape on a map. _I finally made it to China, Josie._

The Beijing airport was sleek, modern, and crowded. Harry let himself get pushed along with the masses of people to the customs line. The English-speaking customs agent started off by examining his passport in a desultory way and asking his destination in a bored tone, but suddenly got way more interested when Harry said he was going to Tibet. In response to the long series of follow-up questions, Harry gave every detail of his cover story with supreme confidence and waited while the agent scrutinized the Interpol credentials and Tibet entry permit Albert had procured for him. The agent called over a supervisor, and the two of them conferred for a few minutes, speaking in Chinese. Harry continued to wait, projecting an air of nonchalance. Finally, the agent stamped his entry permit, handed him his documents back, and Harry was on his way to the domestic terminal to catch his connecting flight to Lhasa.

Harry had no idea what time it was, or even what day it was, as he had crossed the international dateline and he wasn’t quite sure how that worked. But he saw on the flight departure board at his gate that he had only about an hour before the flight to Lhasa. Unlike the international terminal, which as expected had people from all over the world milling about, everyone hanging around the gate area to board the flight to Lhasa seemed to be either Chinese or Tibetan. He was glad for the short wait, as the bustle of the airport was getting on his nerves, given how exhausted he was and how weirdly disconnected from time he felt.

The flight to Lhasa was only three and a half hours, on a much smaller plane. This time he ended up in a window seat on the left side. He tried to get a look at Beijing during takeoff, but it was hard to see much through the yellow haze of air pollution. At one point he saw a line snaking across the hills to the north that he thought was maybe the Great Wall, but then the plane made a steep diving turn in the other direction, so he couldn’t be sure. Once they were at cruising altitude, he kept his face glued to the window, marveling at the occasional glimpses of the landscape he got through gaps in the clouds. That was _China_ down there, with massive cities he didn’t know the name of and meandering rivers and agricultural fields and rolling hills.

With about an hour left in the flight, Harry saw mountains starting to appear to the south. The Himalayas. Snowy mountains, like the Cascades, but much more continuous than those isolated volcanic peaks he was so used to. As they flew closer, Harry could see how extensive the range was, stretching to the east, west, and south off toward the horizon, the peaks like islands sticking out of the sea of clouds below. Their plane didn’t seem to be much higher than the tops of the highest peaks, kind of like how planes taking off to the east from Sea-Tac swoop right over Mount Rainier. But here they were at cruising altitude, thirty thousand feet in the sky, and these mountains looked close enough to touch.

They began their descent into Lhasa, and Harry was surprised at how big it was. The city sat in a river valley surrounded by steep brown hills, and the rare gift of flat land seemed to have been an invitation to cover every square foot with buildings or roads. They descended into a milder version of the yellow haze that had hung over Beijing like poison gas. Soon they were on the ground.

The Lhasa airport was much smaller than the one in Beijing but felt equally crowded. There were none of the Beijing airport’s moving walkways and luxury shops. Instead, the Lhasa airport more closely resembled the Greyhound bus station in Spokane. Another major difference between Beijing and Lhasa, Harry quickly discovered, was that this airport had none of the multilingual signs he had seen in Beijing. Well, the signs were still multilingual, but the languages were Chinese and Tibetan, neither of which helped him. It was disconcerting trying to navigate his way through an airport where he couldn’t read a single word on any of the directional signs. All he could do was just follow the crowd off his flight. They got to what looked like a customs checkpoint, which seemed unnecessary since they were in the domestic terminal, but Harry supposed it was probably a security thing given the tensions in Tibet. The customs agent who examined his documents looked as bored as the one in Beijing but seemed not to speak a word of English. He asked Harry a few questions, to which Harry just shrugged helplessly. The agent peered at his entry permit again, examined the stamp that had been affixed to it in Beijing, and said something that Harry was pretty sure was to the effect of “good enough.” He handed the documents back, and Harry hurried off to disappear into the crowd before the guy could change his mind.

Harry didn’t know which conveyor belt his luggage would purportedly be on, or if it would be there at all, but no one else seemed to know either, as the baggage claim area was filled with a cluster of people walking around and hopefully examining the bags that were arrayed around the room in random patterns. The general attitude seemed to be that either one’s bag would show up eventually, or it wouldn’t. _When in Rome_ , Harry figured, deciding to adopt the Zen attitude. There was, at least, a large wall clock, which Harry used to set his watch to the local time. After a good twenty minutes of surveying the room, he found his backpack leaning against a wall. Miraculously, it had made the journey with him.

Harry made a quick stop at the currency exchange. He changed just a couple hundred dollars into yuan, figuring he wouldn’t need much cash. He was planning on spending as little time in Lhasa as possible, the travel agent had told him that everything was pretty cheap, and once he was on the trail there would hardly be any opportunities to spend money even if he wanted to.

As he exited the terminal, several men came up and mobbed him, asking insistently, “Taxi? Taxi?” An English word that had apparently been adopted into the Tibetan language. Harry fended off the most aggressive of the taxi drivers, opting to reward one of the more polite drivers who had hung back a bit by going with him. The driver, an older guy, showed Harry into his taxi, which turned out to be an ancient yellow Lada sedan. The guy asked Harry something, no doubt where he wanted to go, and Harry paused. He realized that, for one, he didn’t actually know where he was going and, secondly, that he wouldn’t be able to tell the driver even if he did know. Albert had given him a hard time about traveling to a country where he didn’t speak the language, which he had tuned out because he tended to tune Albert out just as a general principle, but it did look like this language barrier thing was going to be a problem. The driver regarded him sympathetically, then appeared to get an idea. He rummaged through his glove compartment and pulled out a city map, which he unfolded and handed to Harry. That was nice of him, but Harry still didn’t know where he was going. Well, he wanted to get on a bus, and the buses probably left from the central part of the city, so that’s probably where he should go. He pointed at a random street intersection in what appeared to be near the middle of the city, and the driver nodded and pulled the car into the flow of traffic leaving the airport.

It was early afternoon, and the roads were busy. The traffic was like a choreographed ballet, with cars, motorcycles, and bicycles all interweaving, cutting into each other’s lanes, coming within inches of each other, but just when a collision seemed inevitable, one of the vehicles would suddenly yield, not in response to any rules about right of way, but seemingly as a result of some mysterious communication between the drivers. There were hardly any traffic lights. Most of the drivers honked their horns so continuously that Harry wondered if that was in some way key to the functioning of their vehicles. He saw an entire family – father, mother with baby, and two older kids – all riding a single motorcycle. He saw a guy riding another motorcycle with a queen-size mattress strapped to the back. Whenever the car stopped, kids ran up to Harry’s passenger-side window with hands outstretched, until his driver yelled at them in Tibetan and they ran away.

The drive into Lhasa took forever, probably an hour and a half. Eventually, they came to what seemed to be the central part of the city, with narrower streets and more crowding together of buildings. The driver stopped at a random intersection and looked at Harry expectantly. Harry realized this must be the random intersection he had asked to go to. He fumbled with the stack of yuan he had gotten at the airport, and then realized he had no idea how much the ride cost, couldn’t ask the driver or understand his answer if he did, and also was completely unfamiliar with the denominations of the local currency. The driver, seeming to understand his dilemma, reached his hand out. Harry, frustrated, just gave him the entire stack of bills. _There’s nothing to stop this guy from taking all my money and driving off_. Instead, the man carefully counted off a couple of bills and handed the rest back to Harry. Grateful that he had apparently found the most honest taxi driver in Lhasa, Harry peeled off another bill – 100 yuan, apparently – and handed it over. He hoped it was neither as large a sum as it sounded or insultingly small as a tip, but the driver accepted it graciously, so it must have been reasonable amount. “Thank you,” Harry said fervently, wishing he had looked up how to say that in Tibetan, but the driver seemed to get it, smiling and waving goodbye.

Getting out of the car, Harry was immediately almost run over by a motorcycle that had snaked between the car and the sidewalk to avoid traffic on the road. Harry leapt onto the sidewalk, heart racing. He was in the heart of Lhasa, and it was complete chaos, a whirlwind of honking horns, vendors shouting to passerby, women rushing by him dressed in brightly colored shawls, dust choking the air, smells of sewage and rotting fruit. He had no idea where he was or where he was going or how to get there, and there was no one he could ask, not even a sign he could read, and he had never felt so alone in his entire life. He felt homesick, not just for Twin Peaks, but for anything familiar. What was he even doing here? He had been completely crazy to come to this country he didn’t understand the first thing about, where he had no business being, just because Coop _might_ be here, based on nothing more than dreams and symbols. He ached, suddenly and terribly, for Coop. If Coop were here with him, this would be an adventure, not the alienating ordeal it was turning out to be. But as his thoughts turned to Coop, he felt his resolve returning. He _knew_ Coop was in Tibet, was at the monastery, and that meant he had probably been in Lhasa too. Maybe Coop had even stood on this same street. And Coop wouldn’t have found it terrifying, he would have found it fascinating, would have jumped at the chance to explore a place so different from his ordinary experience. So Harry would try to be like Coop, to be excited about the unfamiliar instead of frightened by it. And as he shifted his perspective to look at the busy Lhasa street through Coop’s eyes, he relaxed. He could do this.

Harry began by just walking down the street he was on, glancing at the fruit stands and shops and restaurants he passed, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a bus station. When he got to the next intersection, he was momentarily stumped. The street looked as uncrossable as the Pend Oreille River when it was swollen with snowmelt in the spring. There was a continuous stream of cars and motorcycles, none of which slowed down a bit as they approached the intersection. Harry saw two teenage girls about to cross the street, and he hung just behind them to see how they did it. They blithely strolled into the traffic, chatting and giggling away, and the motorcycles swerved around them like flow splitting around a river rock. Harry followed them across to the other side of the street, then continued his stroll to search for buses. As he crossed a couple more streets, his confidence gradually grew. It seemed that the trick he had learned from the girls worked, you just had to step out in front of the motorcycles and they would swerve around you.

As he continued, Harry felt himself a bit short of breath. At first he thought it was the dust, which he kept choking on, but then he remembered that Lhasa was at an altitude of almost 12,000 feet, and he was carrying his full backpack loaded with gear. Well, he’d better get used to that, he was going a lot higher. After an hour or so of walking around, he looked down a side street and saw the welcome sight of a row of buses lined up. Walking over, he realized it wasn’t what he would call a bus station, as there was no building, but there were people milling around, apparently waiting to board. Getting a closer look at the buses themselves, he saw that they didn’t appear to belong to any actual bus company, but were just a random assortment of vehicles painted in different colors, ranging from minivans to what looked like decommissioned school buses. Each vehicle had a guy standing beside it, aggressively hawking its destination to passers-by like the taxi drivers at the airport had. So that was why the travel agent hadn’t been able to buy him a bus ticket, it was an informal system with independent drivers.

Harry went up to the first bus driver he saw and asked, “Gangga?” That was the name of the town closest to the start of the trail to the monastery. “Shannan,” the man replied, shaking his head. Harry went along and made the same inquiry to the next driver, who also shook his head but helpfully pointed to another driver a few buses down. Harry went up to the indicated driver, a young skinny guy, who appeared to be checking the fluid levels for his bus. The bus was one of the larger ones on the street, an actual tour bus, although it looked like it was from the 1950s and was painted lime green.

“Gangga?” Harry tried again. The driver nodded, saying a bunch of other stuff that Harry of course couldn’t understand, but all he needed to know was that the bus was going to his destination. He was ready to get the hell out of Lhasa. “What time does the bus leave?” he asked, gesturing at his watch. The guy said something, Harry made a helpless gesture to indicate that he didn’t understand, and the guy grabbed his wrist and pointed at the six on the dial. “Okay,” Harry said. “I’ll be back then,” making a gesture to that effect. He fervently hoped the guy had meant that the bus was leaving at 6 pm, which was only a few hours away, and not 6 am, in which case he would have to find a place to stay overnight.

Going back to wandering the streets, Harry realized he was hungry, and caught a delicious whiff of frying meat from a street vendor’s stand. He went up to the stand and, not knowing what any of the food was called, simply gestured at the dish of steamed dumplings. “Momos?” the guy said, and scooped several of them into a cardboard box with a small container of sauce. Harry gestured to the cans of Coke the guy also had on the stand to indicate he wanted to buy one of those as well. He handed over fifty yuan, hoping that was enough, and apparently it was because the guy handed him back some change. Harry went and sat on a nearby stone wall to eat his meal. Not knowing what was inside the dumplings (momos, the guy had called them?), Harry sniffed at one and then took a tentative bite. It was delicious. He wasn’t sure exactly what kind of meat it was, maybe goat, but it was minced and cooked with onions, garlic, ginger, and cilantro, and the sauce was made from red chilis. It was spicy enough that Harry drank his lukewarm Coke in just a couple of swigs, but the meat was tender and the flavors were complex and it was damn near the best thing Harry had ever tasted. Maybe Lhasa wasn’t such a bad place after all.

After his meal, Harry went back to the bus staging area to wait there, not wanting to wander around too much more in case he got lost and couldn’t find his bus again. Just before six, he went up to his driver, who still appeared to be fiddling with the engine of the bus. Harry hoped that he was just being thorough in checking its road-worthiness, rather than there being anything wrong with it. The only thing Harry could see wrong with it was that there was now a goat tethered to its roof, but that didn’t seem to be a problem to anyone else. When the driver saw Harry, he waved him onto the bus. There was already a small crowd on the bus, so Harry edged down the aisle until he found an open row, sitting in the window seat and throwing his backpack into the seat next to him. Although the driver had seemed to suggest that their departure was imminent, they just sat there for another hour and a half while the driver fiddled with the engine. None of Harry’s fellow passengers seemed perturbed by the delay. They just sat in their seats and chatted softly to one another, the goat’s footsteps pounding on the roof above them. Apparently bus schedules were not that strict in Tibet. Finally, just after 7:30, when it was fully dark outside, the driver came on board the bus and walked down the aisle collecting money from the passengers. “Gangga?” he confirmed when he came to Harry. Harry nodded and handed him a random wad of yuan, not knowing how much the ride cost. Like the taxi driver, the bus driver was nice enough to only take a couple of the bills and hand the rest back to him. Soon after, they were rolling through the streets of Lhasa, then onto a highway where the surrounding landscape quickly became pitch dark.

Harry knew he should try to sleep. He was exhausted from his travels, feeling like time had become a complete abstraction to him. But sleep seemed impossible, given the bus’s movements. The road seemed to consist of an endless series of hairpin turns that tossed him up against the window, then back toward the aisle, then into the window again. Harry wondered how the goat on the roof was faring. The highway was also unpaved and rough as the logging roads around Twin Peaks. Between the swinging and the bouncing, Harry was glad he wasn’t prone to motion sickness, but it was definitely not conducive to sleep. He also was a bit nervous about sleeping because he might miss his stop. He had no idea how long of a ride it was to Gangga and obviously wouldn’t recognize the place when he saw it, so he was counting on the driver to make an announcement. And finally, he didn’t want to sleep because he didn’t want to have another one of his disturbing dreams. He was getting so close to Coop, he had to believe that whatever was wrong would soon be fixed, that all he needed to do was find him.

* * *

Somehow Harry had apparently fallen asleep despite all the reasons he was sure he wouldn’t. He woke up when the driver took a hairpin turn with an especially cavalier lack of regard for the effects of inertia, and Harry’s face smacked against the window. He saw that it was morning, and also that he was in the most spectacular place he had ever been. On either side of the road was a dry dusty plain, but towering overhead were graceful snowy peaks, lit up with golden alpenglow. He pressed his face against the glass of the window, staring with a giddy wonder. He was in the Himalayas now.

They continued down the road for a couple more hours, passing the occasional village and oncoming vehicle, but not a whole lot else. Eventually, the driver pulled over to the side of the road, right before a bridge crossing a large river, and stopped the bus. The driver made his way down the aisle, stopped next to Harry’s seat, and said something to Harry.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Harry said.

The driver pointed at Harry’s backpack, pantomimed hiking, then pointed at the other side of the road, where there was a trail disappearing into the brush beside the river. Harry suddenly wondered if this was his trail. “Hrdaya Purusa?” Harry asked. He had carefully memorized the name of the monastery, although he was pretty sure he was pronouncing it wrong. But the driver nodded eagerly and pointed at the trail again. He must have figured out that Harry was here to hike, since that was probably the only reason white Westerners ever came to a remote region like this, and so he had made a special stop. Harry was grateful, given that his plan had been to backtrack on foot a couple of miles along the road from the town of Gangga to get to the trail. “Thank you,” he said, wishing again that he knew how to say that in Tibetan, and he grabbed his pack and got off the bus.

Crossing the highway, he glanced back at the bus as it pulled away. The goat was still tethered to its roof, looking unhappy but alive. Harry started up the riverside trail, where there was a hand-painted sign a couple hundred feet in. It had Tibetan characters, but these were ones he thought he recognized. He pulled the _Tibetan Book of the Dead_ out of his pack and flipped through it. Yes, those were the symbols for the “heart of the monster”, Hrdaya Purusa. So this was the correct trail. He also glanced at the topo map, just to confirm, which showed the trail following the river for about ten miles. Hefting his pack onto his back, he set off.

The hiking was pleasant, even though he found it much more difficult to breathe than normal given the altitude. The river was roaring, milky white and braided with gravel bars. The trail was dusty, and littered with animal dung, but otherwise in good shape. At first the trail was right by the river, but as the miles went by the trail climbed higher and higher above the river until it was following a narrow ledge with steep cliffs above and below. The geology was metamorphic, including extensive outcrops of gneiss with gracefully curving black and white bands, like calligraphy on a scroll. Occasionally small waterfalls cascaded down the cliff face, showering him with a welcome spray. The air temperature had started off cool that morning, but had risen into the seventies by afternoon, and felt hotter because of how exposed the trail was to the sunlight. He put on his hat to shield his face from the sun and filled the water bottle he had brought at one of the small waterfalls. On one of their calls, Albert had given him a long lecture about the health hazards he would face on the trip, and one thing Harry remembered was that you weren’t supposed to drink the water in the cities or anywhere near human habitations, but he figured the water way out here was probably safe enough. It wasn’t like he had a choice anyway. As he hiked, he munched on some jerky and trail mix he had packed.

In some ways the landscape reminded him of home, which certainly had its share of rivers, canyons, waterfalls, and snowy mountains. There were even rhododendrons growing along the canyon walls, blooming pink in surprising resemblance to the Pacific rhododendron, the Washington state flower. But in other ways it was clear that he was somewhere foreign. In Washington, a remote river canyon like this would have few signs of humans, other than maybe some clearcuts on the slopes above. But this was a landscape that showed signs of an ancient and intimate relationship with people. On every high point, there was a small shrine of some sort, right in the middle of the trail, which split to go around it. The shrines all consisted of what looked like a stack of rectangular blocks topped by a hemisphere that was in turn topped by a spire, all painted white. Some of the shrines housed a row of bronze cylindrical wheels engraved with Tibetan characters, and all were strewn like maypoles with garlands of multicolored flags that fluttered in the wind. Occasionally, there were piles of black stones painted with white characters along the trail, somewhat resembling the petroglyph he had found in Idaho. Even though Harry didn’t understand the meaning of all these artifacts, it was clear that the spirituality of the local people was written like poetry across the landscape. _Coop must love it here_. The thought sent another pang of loneliness through him. Coop must have walked this very trail to get to the monastery. God, he wished Coop were with him now. Coop would no doubt be explaining the significance of the shrines and wheels and flags and stones, at great length and with great enthusiasm, and Harry would gladly listen, would be so happy to listen to Coop talk about anything. Harry missed Coop’s voice, missed his smile. He was simultaneously eager to get to the monastery as quickly as possible and afraid to get there, because if he was wrong and Coop wasn’t there, he didn’t know what to do.

For many miles he had the trail to himself, so he was startled when he went around a bend and came face-to-face with a large cow-like animal with giant curved horns, which was carrying a load of bags on its back. The animal was being driven by a teenage boy wearing a wool shawl, who greeted him by saying, “Tashi delek.” Harry stood aside to let them pass. Luckily, their encounter had taken place on a wider-than-average section of trail, but he still had to lean back into the cliff face to make room for the animal to go by. _A yak_ , Harry decided. _That must be a yak_.

It was his first yak, and far from his last. Over the course of the day, he encountered several other yak herders going about their business, each of whom graciously said “Tashi delek.” Harry figured that must be the local greeting, so he started saying it back, which earned him broad smiles. They seemed like very friendly people. The yaks, on the other hand, seemed less friendly, so he tried to give them and their giant horns as wide a berth as possible.

Late in the afternoon, the trail crossed a narrow swinging suspension bridge, with the river like a thin silver ribbon a couple hundred feet below. Harry eyed it skeptically, but figured all those yaks had crossed it, so if it could hold them it must be safe enough for him too. He edged across it as quickly as possible, his steps causing it to rock uncomfortably from side to side. Near the middle of the bridge, a gust of wind blowing down the canyon almost took his hat away, but he caught it at the last second. Shortly after the bridge, the trail entered a small village, which had its own shrine, somewhat larger than the ones he’d seen along the trail, and a bronze engraved wheel that was being continuously turned by a sluice of water diverted from a stream. Harry consulted his topo map. It looked like this was the only village for several miles, and it was getting late in the day, so he might as well stop for the night. According to the annotations on the map, there were several teahouses here that offered room and board. He stopped at the first one he saw, identifiable by the sign out front with a picture of a cup of tea on it. He paid a few yuan to the elderly woman at the front desk, and she showed him to a drafty room that contained a bed, some blankets and pillows, and not really anything else. Hungry after the long day of hiking, Harry was hopeful that momos would be served for dinner that night, but instead the meal consisted of a spicy stew with potatoes and unidentifiable meat. Harry wondered if it was yak meat. They seemed to be the only herd animals around, and the meat did have a beef-like consistency. He ate the stew, which was not bad but also not as good as momos, and drank some black tea, figuring that it was probably safer than drinking water because at least it had been boiled. He went to bed soon after. He was worn out enough to have blissfully dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Harry woke with a headache. He wondered if he was dehydrated and drank the rest of the water from the bottle he had filled at the spring. The teahouse woman gave him breakfast, which consisted of a barley porridge with a weird salty butter-like substance mixed into it. Harry choked it down, knowing he would need the energy for the day’s hike, but it was not really to his taste, and he didn’t have much of an appetite this morning. He drank some more black tea, then packed up his stuff and hit the trail again.

The second day of hiking was less enjoyable than the first, both because his headache persisted and because the trail was getting much steeper. Soon the trail left the river entirely and started charging up a ridge on a series of punishing switchbacks. Harry had to stop frequently, both to catch his breath in the thinning air and to allow for the passage of yaks. There was a lot of traffic on this section of trail, and the yaks kicked up dust that made him cough, adding to his breathing difficulties. He passed through a couple more villages and past dozens more small shrines. At one village, a black dog appeared and trotted alongside him for almost three miles to the next village. At that point, the dog abandoned him, somewhat to Harry’s disappointment. He had been enjoying having some company. But at the far side of that village, another dog appeared, this one mottled brown. The new dog followed him to the next village. _Is this what these dogs do all day? Just follow people from village to village?_

As Harry climbed higher, the vegetation got sparser and sparser, until there was nothing but rock. He arrived at another suspension bridge, this one crossing a deep chasm over a small stream. He started across, but his latest canine companion sniffed hesitantly at the bridge, apparently decided he didn’t like the looks of it, and started trotting back down the trail the way they had come. Harry tried calling the dog back, but to no avail. Looked like he was on his own again.

Soon after, he cleared a ridgetop, and the trail finally began leveling off and then dropped into a broad U-shaped glacial valley. Looking up the valley, Harry could see a massive glacier, a few miles away, spilling off the towering peaks. The trail turned toward the glacier, following along the top of its lateral moraine above the stream of glacial meltwater. At one point he scrambled down the moraine to refill his water bottle from the stream. He had to use a bandana to strain out the silt that was clouding the water like flour. The trail became indistinct among the cobbles and boulders and debris, but every so often there was a cairn, strewn with colored flags that stood out among the rocky landscape, to show the way. The yak traffic had significantly dropped off. He saw only one herder after entering the glacial valley, and there was much less yak dung carpeting the trail.

After a couple miles, he came to a small collection of stone buildings with corrugated metal roofs. It wasn’t a full village, just a couple of isolated houses, but his map indicated that there was a teahouse here, and it was the last one before the long hike to the monastery. He quickly found the teahouse and checked in, exhausted. The accommodations here were even more basic than at the last one, with not even a full bed but just a mattress on the floor, but the dinner was the same maybe-yak stew. He went to his room right after dinner, both because he was tired and because it was dark and there was no electricity, so nothing to do. But tonight, he had trouble falling asleep. His head was pounding, and his thoughts were racing. Tomorrow, if all went as planned, he would arrive at the monastery and find Coop. Or not find him and discover that this trip had all been for nothing. He tried to think of contingency plans, for what he would do if Coop wasn’t at the monastery, but he could come up with nothing. Eventually, he fell into a troubled but dreamless sleep.

He woke early the next morning, still with a headache, but a little better than the day before. At breakfast, he asked the teahouse keeper for some hot water, which he used to make coffee with his French press and the grounds he had bought at the Double R. He poured the coffee into the Evergreen State thermos he had bought, hoping that he had done an okay job at making it and that the thermos was insulated well enough to keep it hot until he found Coop later in the day. He choked down his salty-butter-porridge and set off, eager to tackle the 18,000-foot pass, the last major obstacle between him and Coop. He was very close to the glacier at the head of the valley now. He could see the iridescent blue light it seemed to generate from within. The trail crossed the meltwater stream, which involved some precarious hopping from boulder to boulder, then climbed over the lateral moraine on the opposite side of the valley. With little fanfare, the trail then began a full-frontal ascent of the valley side wall.

Harry spent the entire morning and part of the afternoon on the ascent. The going was rough, with the angle so steep he had to scramble up using his hands in places, and there was an endless series of giant boulders he had to climb over, quickly sapping his dwindling energy reserves. The advantage was that there was no sign of yaks, the trail was too steep for them. But during some stretches, he had to stop every few hundred feet to catch his breath. He could even _see_ the thinness of the air. It made everything look closer, and sharper, with such contrast between light and shadow that it was like paint on a canvas. The sky was so blue it was almost painful to look at.

Finally, by midafternoon, he reached the pass. He threw himself down on a boulder, gasping for breath, and looked around. He could see the blue glacier below him, churning out its meltwater stream. Right above him, looking close enough to touch, was the mountain the glacier originated from, crowned with a spindrift of snow blowing off its summit into that impossibly blue sky. And on the other side of the pass – his heart leapt – he could see the monastery. That’s what it had to be, his map didn’t show any other buildings in the area. It was still a couple miles away, below the pass but perched on a promontory that jutted out above the valley below. Even though he still hadn’t caught his breath yet, he got to his feet and threw his pack on. _I’m coming, Coop_.


	6. Chapter 6

Now that he could see the monastery, Harry walked as fast as he could, which was a lot faster than his previous pace because now he was going downhill. The trail was covered with loose rocks, though, and he had to force himself to watch where he was putting his feet so he didn’t go sliding off a cliff. As he walked, he wondered how Coop would react to him showing up. Would he be surprised that Harry had found him, had come all this way? Angry that Harry had come even though Coop clearly hadn’t wanted anyone to know where he was? Would Coop be happy to see him?

As shadows lengthened in the late afternoon light, Harry finally walked up to the gate of the monastery, a large stone building strewn with colored flags and lined with bronze wheels. There was, in fact, an actual gate, guarded on each side by statues of fierce creatures that looked half-lion, half-dragon. Harry hesitated at the gate. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was here, should he just go up and knock at the door? Then he saw a boy, about eight years old, standing in front of the building, next to a couple of yaks who were grazing on the sparse herbaceous vegetation growing among the rocks. The boy was breaking up some sort of thin brown sheets into chunks and placing them in a basket. Harry wasn’t sure what the sheets were, until he saw fresh yak dung spread out next to the solidified sheets, apparently set out to dry in the sun. It had to be for fuel, since he couldn’t think of any other reason the kid would be collecting yak dung, and it made sense given that there wasn’t any wood to burn up here. The boy saw him and waved shyly. Harry took that as an invitation to walk through the gate.

“Tashi delek,” he said to the boy.

“Tashi delek,” the boy replied. He had a shaved head and wore long embroidered robes.

Harry pulled the photo of Coop from his jacket pocket. “Is this man here?” he asked, showing the photo to the boy and then pointing at the building.

The boy hardly even glanced at the photo before nodding emphatically. Harry and Coop were probably the only white Westerners with two hundred miles, so it’s not like there were many other people Coop could be confused with. Harry felt a surge of relief. He was finally going to see Coop and make sure he was okay. That was followed immediately by a surge of nervousness, at not knowing what Coop’s state of mind was or how he would react to Harry’s sudden arrival.

“Can I, uh, go in?” Harry asked, gesturing at the door. The boy pointed at Harry’s feet. Harry saw that there was a row of shoes lined up on the covered porch beside the door. Taking the hint, he took off his boots and placed them with the other shoes, and also took off his pack and left it on the porch for good measure. He glanced one more time at the boy, who nodded permission and went back to breaking up the yak dung sheets. Harry opened the door to the monastery and stepped inside.

He was greeted by the musky smell of incense, another musky smell under that which could be smoke from burning yak dung, and the sound of chanting. The inside of the monastery was cold like a cave. There was no one in the room he found himself standing in, which seemed to be some sort of entrance chamber hung with paintings of the Buddha. There was also another of those engraved cylindrical wheels in the center of the room, the largest he had seen, taller than Harry and with a circumference like an old-growth Douglas fir. There was no one in the entrance chamber, but beyond the giant wheel was the door to another room, where the chants were coming from. The door was open, so Harry walked over and stuck his head in. There was a whole row of monks lined up, about ten or twelve of them, all wearing heavy embroidered robes, seated on a low wooden bench. They were all chanting, low and deep and melodic, what sounded like the same phrase over and over again, their voices blending into a polyphonic harmony. They were facing one of the side walls, and Harry edged into the room so he could get a look at their faces. And that’s when he saw Coop, sitting on the bench near the middle of the row of monks.

The first surprise was that he had the beginnings of a beard, which was not a look Harry had ever expected to see on Coop. His hair was also longer and considerably more disordered than normal. And he was wearing the same robes as the monks. But underneath all that, it was Coop, and Harry had to restrain himself from rushing over or calling out. The monks were obviously in the middle of something, and he didn’t want to interrupt. So he leaned back against the wall, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and watched and listened to the chanting. He had waited this long to see Coop, he could be patient and wait a bit longer.

Like the monks, Coop’s eyes were closed while he chanted, so Harry didn’t think he had noticed his presence yet. Studying his friend’s face, Harry saw that he looked tired, and bit gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes. But he also had an expression of peace on his face while he mouthed the words to the chant, and Harry wondered again if his presence was going to be less than welcome. Maybe Coop was happy here, wanted to spend the rest of his life as a Buddhist monk, and maybe Harry had no right to intrude.

Well, it was too late now. The monks seemed to be wrapping up the chant. The oldest monk lingered on the last note, while the echoes hung around for a long moment, trapped by the stone walls. All at once, the monks got up and filed out of the room, walking right by Harry into the entrance chamber without acknowledging him. Coop, however, did not get up with the others. He remained seated on the low bench, eyes still closed, apparently still in meditation.

Harry glanced around. It was just him and Coop in the room now. He felt a bit awkward. He didn’t want to interrupt Coop’s meditation, but the longer he hung around here the weirder it was going to be when Coop finally noticed him. Not knowing what to do, he edged further into the room and examined some of the objects that were arrayed on shelves against the wall Coop was facing. There was a set of beautiful copper bowls of different sizes, with a small wooden mallet lying beside them. Several shelves were occupied by scrolls, all rolled up and stacked together. There was a pot of blooming marigolds, the sight of gave Harry a pang as he remembered Coop telling him that their petals were used across several cultures to symbolize a path between worlds. Another shelf held some sort of hide from an animal he couldn’t identify. He peered at it closer. The fur was brown, shaggy, and long. Maybe from a bear?

“It’s a yeti scalp.” Harry whirled around. It was Coop who had spoken from his seated position on the bench. His eyes were open now, but he wasn’t looking at Harry, didn’t seem to be looking at anything, as he continued speaking. “At least, that’s what the monks say.”

Harry had thought of many possible greetings Coop might bestow upon his arrival, but an offhanded remark about yeti scalps had not been one of them. Well, he was willing to go with it. An open-minded attitude was always helpful in conversations with Coop. So he asked by way of reply, just as casually, “You don’t believe in the yeti?” It didn’t seem like Coop to be skeptical of the monks.

“I do,” Coop answered, still staring straight ahead. “I just don’t believe _that_ is a yeti scalp. Look at it. What color is it?”

“Brown.”

“And look at the landscape outside.” Coop waved toward the window on the far side of the room, where snowy mountains stretched into the sky. “What is the dominant color of the landscape?”

“White.”

“Exactly. It seems likely that, for purposes of camouflage, a creature adapted to the environment of the high Himalayas would have a white coat, as the snow leopard does, and as the yeti’s common nickname of ‘abominable snowman’ suggests.”

Figuring he might as well fully commit himself to the bizarre conversation, Harry felt compelled to point out a possible flaw in the logic. “Well, what if the yeti has a brown summer coat and a white winter coat, like a snowshoe hare or Arctic fox? This scalp could be from the yeti’s summer coat.”

“That is an excellent point, Harry.” Well, that confirmed that Coop at least knew he was talking to Harry, which Harry hadn’t been sure of. Wanting to get a better look at Coop and maybe some actual eye contact, Harry left the shelf and walked over to where Coop was sitting as Coop went on, “However, according to the monks, that scalp came from a yeti that was killed in January 1953, so it would have had its winter coat at the time.”

Standing right in front of Coop, Harry couldn’t hold back any longer. Investigating the provenance of a yeti scalp in a Tibetan monastery was just such a _Coop_ thing to do, and listening to his friend’s voice expound upon his findings with such sincerity filled Harry with a wave of affection so intense he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and ruffling Coop’s hair. “Speaking of scalps,” he said, “I guess they don’t have any hair gel in the monastery. The mountain man look suits you, Coop.”

As soon as his hand touched Coop’s hair, Coop’s hand darted up and grabbed his wrist, and for the first time Coop looked straight at Harry and made eye contact. Harry froze, afraid he had gone too far by messing with the hair. But Coop just said, wonderingly, “Harry, you’re really here.”

“Well, yeah.” Now Harry was really confused. “Who did you think you were talking to about yeti scalps for the last five minutes?”

A wide grin broke out on Coop’s face, and he leapt to his feet and wrapped his arms around Harry in a rib-crushing hug. “I thought we were communicating on the spirit plane again,” he said into Harry’s ear.

“Oh. Is that what we were doing before?” Harry wondered if he was talking about the dreams, if maybe Coop had been having them too. Whatever, that could wait. For now, he just relaxed into Coop’s embrace. It had been nearly a year since he had last seen Coop in person, and over three months since he had last heard his voice, and he had spent most of the past two months doing little other than worrying about Coop, where he was, why he had left, whether he was okay, whether Harry would ever see him again. So to see him, to feel him, to talk to him, was such a profound relief, such a joy, that Harry felt himself shaking a bit as he held Coop close to him and ruffled his hair again.

After a long minute, they pulled apart, and Coop held Harry shoulder-length away, seeming to survey him. Coop was still grinning. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go outside. It’s warmer out there, and the view is spectacular.”

They made their way to the front entrance. Coop started toward the gate, but Harry said, “Wait a minute,” and rummaged through the backpack he had left on the porch. He found the Tupperware container where he had stashed the slice of cherry pie from the Double R. “I don’t know how well it survived the trip,” he said, handing it to Coop, “but I figured they probably don’t have a lot of desserts up here –”

“Harry,” Coop said as he opened the container. “Is this --?”

“Norma’s cherry pie, yeah.” Harry winced a bit at the sad condition of the pie. The filling had completely soaked through the crust, so it resembled more of a soup than a pie, but Coop was looking at it like it was a beautiful jewel. “It looks a little worse for wear, but it might still be edible –”

“No, this is wonderful.” Coop’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Although there are many things I find satisfying about the monastic life, there are also many things I miss. Pie is one of them. I just wish I had a cup of joe to go with this. At the monastery, it’s strictly tea.”

Wordlessly, Harry pulled out the Evergreen State thermos and handed it to him. Coop’s eyes got even bigger as he opened the thermos and breathed in the vapors.

“Coffee,” Coop said reverently, as if in prayer. “And it’s still hot. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you’re all right, Harry.” They grinned at each other, Harry found a fork in his pack for Coop’s pie, and they went and sat on a low stone wall next to one of the dragon-lions guarding the monastery gate.

The wind had picked up, fluttering the colored flags attached to the gate, but the sun had not yet dipped below the mountains rimming the horizon, so Coop had been right that it was warmer out here than in the monastery. He had also been right about the view, which Harry hadn’t fully appreciated on his approach, distracted as he had been. The monastery was perched on a ridgetop, with the pass Harry had crossed to the north and another high pass to the south. Spread out to the east, directly in front of where they sat at the monastery gate, was a vista of three graceful glacier-clad peaks, their features illuminated in sharp detail by the low-angled light of the setting sun. The dragon-lion statue next to Harry appeared to have its eyes fixed on the highest central peak, as if about to take off and fly toward it.

Coop took a bite of the soggy cherry pie and immediately made a pleased sound. “I think this is the most delicious pie I’ve ever tasted. Would you like some, Harry?”

“No, thanks.” Harry would much rather just watch Coop enjoy it. “I will take a couple swigs of that coffee, though, if you don’t mind.” He still had a dull headache throbbing away, and he hoped the caffeine would help.

“Of course.” Coop handed him the thermos, and Harry took a sip. It was pretty good. He passed it back to Coop, who also drank some and said, “That is some damn good coffee. It tastes like it came from the Double R.”

“It did. I mean, I brought some ground beans from there and brewed it with a French press in the teahouse I was staying at this morning. Glad that thermos did such a good job keeping it hot.”

“That was very considerate of you, Harry. I have to confess that living without coffee these past couple of months has been extremely difficult for me.”

“I bet.” Harry couldn’t believe that Coop had gone two months without coffee. Normally he didn’t go two hours without it during his waking hours. “How did you manage that?”

“Ascetic self-denial has well-known benefits for one’s spiritual development. Examples abound from every religious tradition. Lent, Passover, Ramadan, and so forth.” Coop took another sip of coffee, then turned to Harry and regarded him earnestly. “Harry, I hope I’ve made it clear that I am delighted to see you. But why are you here?”

“Are you kidding?” Harry was dumbfounded that Coop would even ask that. It’s not like this place was on the way to anywhere. “I came to find you. Why are _you_ here?” _Why did you give up coffee and pie and the FBI? Why did you have to leave your old life so completely that you were going to cut me out of it?_

Coop paused for a moment, fiddling with the lid of the thermos. “Harry, I want you to imagine a river.”

“Is this going to be one of those ‘sound of one-hand clapping’ things?”

“A koan. Essentially, yes.”

Harry sighed. Normally he was happy to follow Coop’s thoughts wherever they led, but this was one case where he would really just like a straightforward answer to his question. But he did his best to comply. “Okay, I see a river.”

“Imagine that you are the water in the river. The water doesn’t dwell on where it has just been, or on where it’s going. It’s completely in the present, in a constant state of becoming. That state of flow is what I am trying to achieve, with the help of the monks here.”

“Okay.” That didn’t really answer his question in any way, but Harry decided not to push it right now. God knows they both had enough disturbing stuff in their past and uncertainty in the future that he didn’t want to dwell on either. Besides, his present was here, with Coop, watching an alpenglow light show illuminate the Himalayas, so he was more than willing to go with the flow on that. But he did have to ask one more question, to address the doubt that had been growing in his mind about whether he was doing Coop more harm than good with his presence. “So am I messing up your flow by being here?”

Coop’s response was immediate. “No, of course not. You could never mess up my flow, Harry. I’ve told you, I consider you a bodhisattva, an enlightened being that guides others on their path. I couldn’t be happier that you’re here.”

* * *

As darkness approached and air took on a distinct chill, they went back inside. Coop took Harry on a brief tour of the monastery. In addition to the meditation room he had already seen, there were a few other ceremonial chambers, a dining hall, and individual quarters, each of which was the size of a walk-in closet, just large enough to hold two beds. Coop currently didn’t have a roommate, so Harry threw his pack into their now-shared room. Coop also introduced him to the head monk, the old man who had been leading the chanting. Coop and the monk had a brief back-and-forth in rapid-fire Tibetan, which Coop apparently spoke fluently, then the monk bowed to Harry and shuffled off.

“He just said that you’re of course welcome to stay as long as you like,” Coop explained. He paused and glanced at Harry, something unreadable in his eyes. “How long do you think that might be, Harry?”

Harry had no idea. By his count, he had been away for five days already, and it would take him at least that long to get back to Twin Peaks. That meant he had a maximum of four days before he had to leave if he was going to return within his two-week vacation. But he wasn’t going to leave until either Coop agreed to come with him, or he felt confident that Coop was okay and happy here, and right now he had no idea what Coop’s real state of mind was. So he just shrugged noncommittally. “No firm timeline, I have a few weeks’ vacation and Hawk is handling things while I’m gone. He says hi, by the way.” Changing the subject, he asked, “Where did you learn to speak Tibetan, Coop?”

“I began studying it from books when I first became interested in Tibet four years ago. I couldn’t speak it very well when I first arrived here, though. The monks have been very patient in instructing me in their language as well as in spiritual matters.”

They went off to the kitchen, where they were set to work peeling potatoes. Apparently, all spiritual seekers who stayed at the monastery was expected to help with chores, which helped keep the place running and, as Coop explained, the manual labor was beneficial in “promoting mindfulness.” Soon the meal was cooked, and they filed into the dining hall along with the monks.

Most of the monks sat alone and ate their stew silently, while some spoke quietly with one another. Harry and Coop sat off in one corner by themselves so they could converse in low voices without disturbing anyone. Coop didn’t seem to want to talk about himself, but he had lots of questions about how Harry and Twin Peaks were doing. Harry didn’t have much to say about his own life, since he hadn’t really had one since the last time they spoke, consumed as he had been with his search for Coop. He also didn’t have much news to report from Twin Peaks, as nothing very interesting had happened there since Coop had left last year. But he dutifully gave whatever updates he could think of: Ben Horne had filed a citizen’s complaint under the Endangered Species Act on behalf of the pine weasel in his latest effort to stop Ghostwood Estates, Audrey was starting classes at Evergreen State College in the fall, Bobby Briggs was undergoing training to become a sheriff’s deputy despite some misgivings on Harry’s part, and Andy and Lucy were already talking about having a second child. Coop listened to it all with rapt fascination. As they neared the end of their meal, Coop looked up and asked, with some hesitancy, “Have you heard anything about Annie lately?”

“Norma said she’s back at the convent. Has been for a few months, I think. Last I heard, she was doing well.”

“Good.” Coop looked down at his bowl. “I’m glad she’s found comfort in her spiritual beliefs, just as I have.” That was the closest they had come to talking about the events of last year, and Harry didn’t like how just the barest allusion to the topic seemed to darken something in Coop’s eyes. Harry rubbed at his own forehead. His headache was persisting, and he hadn’t had much of an appetite for dinner.

“Are you feeling all right, Harry?” Coop had apparently noticed his discomfort and his half-full bowl.

“Yeah. I’ve just had a headache for the past couple of days. No big deal, maybe just a bit dehydrated.”

“Hmm.” Coop made a noncommittal sound. “How much time did you spend in Lhasa before you went into the mountains?”

“Uh, about six hours.”

“Harry!” Coop looked horrified. “You’re supposed to take a day or two to acclimate to the altitude before going higher.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember Albert saying something about that.” That was another thing he had tuned out from Albert’s lecture. There had been no chance he was going to follow that advice anyway. He hadn’t especially liked Lhasa, other than the momos, and he had been chomping at the bit to get to the monastery and find Coop. But now Coop was regarding him with open concern.

“Have you taken anything for the headache?”

“No, I didn’t have anything with me.” He probably should have brought some aspirin with him, but he didn’t usually get headaches unless they were hangover-related.

“Persistent headaches are a symptom of altitude illness. As is loss of appetite.” Coop looked pointedly at his bowl. “Have you had any other symptoms?”

“No. A bit tired, I guess, but that’s probably just from the travel and the hiking.”

Coop continued to interrogate him. Any cough? Shortness of breath while at rest? Nausea or vomiting? Loss of balance? When Harry answered in the negative in each case, Coop seemed to relax a bit.

“It seems that it may be a mild case, so you should improve now that you’re not ascending any higher. Wait here, I’ll be right back.” In a few minutes Coop returned with a bottle of aspirin and a small bowl, which he shoved across the table to him. “Take two aspirin, and drink that,” he ordered.

Harry gratefully took two aspirin out of the bottle, then examined the contents of the bowl dubiously. It was a thick, creamy, yellow liquid, lightly steaming, with a smell a bit like yogurt. “What is this?”

“It’s called po cha. Butter tea. The monks say it helps with the altitude.”

Harry obediently took a sip and immediately wished he hadn’t. He recognized the flavor, it was the same salty butter the teahouse keepers insisted on dumping into his barley porridge every morning. Drinking it in its pure unadulterated form was like getting a mouthful of seawater. “What kind of butter is this?” A suspicion entered his mind. “Is it yak butter?”

“Technically, it’s nak butter. A nak is a female yak.”

“Ugh.” Who put butter in tea, anyway? But Coop was watching his every move, so Harry forced himself to drink the entire bowl of tea, using it to chase down the aspirin.

Coop looked satisfied. “That should make your headache go away. If it’s not better tomorrow, I’m taking you down to a lower altitude.”

_Can we go all the way down to Twin Peaks?_ But Harry just nodded his agreement. Despite the lingering aftertaste of the butter tea, he felt a sense of contentment he hadn’t experienced in months. He had found Coop, now he just had to find out what had driven him here in the first place.


	7. Chapter 7

They went to sleep soon after dinner, because the monastic lifestyle seemed to be big on the early-to-bed, early-to-rise schedule. The monks were definitely into the early-to-rise part, because Harry was awoken from a sound sleep by the sound of gongs while there was still full-blown darkness. He fumbled for his watch, which he had put beside his bed, and hit the little button to illuminate the screen. It was 4 am.

“How are you feeling, Harry?” Coop asked. He had lit a lantern and was in the process of putting on his robes.

“Much better. Headache’s gone.” Harry wasn’t sure if it was the aspirin or the butter tea, or the combination thereof, but he did have the sweet feeling of active painlessness that can only be felt after the removal of pain. He started to get out of bed too, but Coop stopped him.

“No, Harry, you should still take it easy today. I’m just going to morning meditation before helping with breakfast. You should stay here and sleep for a couple more hours. I’ll come and get you when breakfast is ready.”

“Okay, thanks.” That was fine with Harry. He could see his and Coop’s breath in the morning chill, but his bed was nice and warm. He also had no desire to go to morning meditation. After Coop left, he drifted back to sleep to the sound of the monks’ distant chanting.

When he awoke again, bright sunlight was slanting though the narrow window onto the floor. He got up and peered out the window, getting a glimpse of the snowy peaks backlit by the sun. He had just finished getting dressed when Coop came in to tell him breakfast was ready.

After they ate their nak-butter-barley-porridge and drank some coffee that Harry had surreptitiously made with his French press (he wasn’t sure if the monks would frown on it), he and Coop helped wash the dishes and clean up the dining hall. By the time they were done, all the monks seemed to have dispersed, to where and to do what Harry had no idea.

“Harry, would you like to see a sand mandala in the process of being created?” Coop asked.

“Sure.” Harry didn’t know what that was, but it’s not like he had any other plans.

Coop led him to a large room at the far end of the monastery from where their quarters are. There, in the center of the room, two of the younger monks were kneeling on the floor. Each of them held a small metal funnel, which they were slowly moving in patterns over the floor. A stream of colored sand trickled out of each funnel, red out of one and blue out of the other. Coming closer, Harry looked over the monks’ shoulders at the floor. A complex pattern of symbols was laid out – a sequence of alternating circles and squares embedded within each other, what looked like miniature temples in each of the four directions, and flower petals in the center – all made out of sand dyed in every color of the rainbow. The whole thing was probably about six feet in diameter. It was an incredible display of intricate artwork. Harry retreated back a couple of feet, afraid that he would sneeze or accidentally create a breeze that would destroy the whole thing.

“It’s amazing,” he whispered to Coop.

Coop nodded. “They started working on it a couple weeks after I arrived. It’s nearly done now, probably just another day or two to go.”

“What is the meaning of it? I mean, why those specific symbols?”

“Well, part of the meaning is derived from the process of creating it, the meditative state achieved. Mandalas are generally interpreted as a map of the entire cosmos. The innermost section, with the lotus flower, is the realm of the Buddha. The subsequent rings all symbolize various deities. In a mandala of this size, there are hundreds of them. The outermost ring, which they’re working on now, represents a charnel ground.”

“And that is…?”

“An above-ground site for the putrefaction of bodies,” Coop answered matter-of-factly.

Harry wished he hadn’t asked. Still, the mandala was beautiful. He wandered along the walls of the large chamber they were in, examining some of the artwork that was hanging on the walls. There were paintings of several types. Some of them were of mandalas like the one in the sand painting, all with variations in their color and design. Others depicted various forms of the Buddha wearing a gentle, compassionate smile. Still other paintings were more disturbing. Harry stopped in front of one painting, which showed a demonic-looking creature with blue skin, three glaring eyes, fangs bared, face contorted and grimacing. It had four arms, one of which held a human skull, and another which brandished a sharp spear. The figure was wreathed in flame and appeared to be crushing small human figures beneath its feet. “Why do they have paintings of monsters like this?” he asked Coop, who had come up behind him. “Do they worship them?” Harry was trying to wrap his head around how the Tibetan Buddhists see the world. Since their beliefs were so important to Coop, Harry felt he needed to try to understand better.

“Worship isn’t the right word for how Buddhists view deities,” Coop replied, fully in his element now. “We revere and honor the divine within all beings, their Buddha nature. That includes the Buddha Shakyamuni, who represents compassion and wisdom.” He pointed at a neighboring painting that showed the familiar seated Buddha in a mediation pose with a serene expression. “But deities can take a wrathful form as well, like this one.” He pointed back at the monstrous painting they were considering. “They can serve as guards, like the snow lions at the gate of the monastery. Their role is to fight the negative forces like anger and ego that stand in the way of our path to enlightenment. It’s thought that many of those wrathful deities came from the old religion, Bon, which was the folk religion in Tibet before Buddhism came. Similar to how Christianity incorporated elements of the pagan religions it replaced. The way Buddhism brought in those ancient Bon gods is a perfect example of the central insight of Buddhism itself.”

“How so?” Harry asked. He still wasn’t sure what the central insight of Buddhism was, but he had a feeling he was going to finding out.

“You can’t defeat monsters,” Coop said simply. “You have to learn to live with them.”

Harry gazed back at the painting. He was wondering what, if anything, all this talk of gods and monsters had to do with the dreams he’d been having, with the feeling he still had that something wasn’t right with Coop. Apparently noticing his mood, Coop spoke up again. “Something’s bothering you, Harry. What is it?”

Harry paused. “I don’t think I can say without messing up your flow.”

“Never mind my flow, Harry. You can say anything.” Coop looked at with a serious expression, and Harry took that as an invitation to finally ask what he had wanted to ask since he arrived at the monastery.

“Why did you resign from the FBI? Why didn’t you tell me –” that sounded needier than he wanted – “tell _anyone_ where you were going? Albert was worried about you too,” he finished, lamely.

Coop looked sad, but also evasive. “I didn’t mean to worry anyone. It was inconsiderate of me to just leave like that. I’m sorry, Harry.”

“I don’t want an apology.” With his rising anger, Harry’s voice was also rising. Guiltily, he glanced over at the sand-painting monks, but they were clearly deep in the zone and hadn’t even looked up. Still, he consciously dropped the volume of his voice. “I want a reason.”

“I don’t know if I can give you an adequate one, Harry.” Coop looked really miserable now. “To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t exactly in my right mind at the time.”

“What do you mean?”

Coop didn’t speak for a long moment. He walked back over to the painting of the Buddha Shakyamuni, and Harry followed. Coop stared at the Buddha as if looking for strength. Finally, he said, “It started during a case. In Savannah.”

“The Maya Samson murder,” Harry confirmed. Coop looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Albert sent me the case file,” Harry explained. “I couldn’t find anything in it.”

“That’s because there wasn’t anything in the case file. What I experienced in Savannah I didn’t put in my reports, because it wasn’t relevant to the facts of the case.”

“What did you experience?”

Coop sighed, turning away from Harry to look at the Buddha again. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it at this time. I’m sorry, Harry, I understand this is important to you.”

“It’s okay, Coop,” Harry said, more worried than ever. What had been so horrible that Coop couldn’t even talk about it? “Whenever you’re ready.”

Suddenly, Coop spun away from the painting. “I just had an idea. I was recording my notes to Diane while I was in Savannah. I have the recording with me. Would you like to listen to it?”

Harry wasn’t sure he did want to, but he knew he had to. “Yeah. Thanks.”

They went back to their room, where Coop emptied out the contents of his backpack onto his bed and dug through them. He found the handheld voice recorder he always kept with him, even to the point of bringing to a Tibetan monastery when he no longer worked for the FBI. Coop truly was a creature of habit. He handed the voice recorder over to Harry, warning him, “It might be disturbing. As I said, I wasn’t exactly in my right mind at the time.” Harry nodded, and Coop went on to inform him, “I’m going to help milk the naks now.” That was something Harry would like to see, but clearly now was not the time.

After Coop left, Harry steeled himself and hit play on the recorder. He had to do quite a bit of rewinding and fast-forwarding to get to the appropriate timeframe, getting a few snippets of classic Coop stream-of-consciousness in the process. (“Diane, could you please send me via overnight mail the reference book on Jungian archetypes I keep in my office? All the available copies seem to have been checked out of the Peoria public library...” “Diane, I have just learned that one quarter of all the llamas in the United States are found in Oregon. The significance of this fact and its bearing on the current case remain unclear at this time…” “Diane, it turns out that in Vermont, and only in Vermont, soft-serve ice cream cones are known as ‘Creemees’. I made this discovery at a small café in Stowe where I stopped for lunch…”) Finally, Harry found the segment he was looking for, when Coop started talking about how he was headed to Savannah to investigate the murder of a seventeen-year-old girl.

The recording started off normally enough (well, Coop-normal), with some enthusiastic reviews of the local pecan pie and the beautiful live oaks. (Pie and trees, two surefire paths to Coop’s heart.) But things quickly took a darker turn. “When I walked into the morgue, for a moment I saw Maya Samson’s body wrapped in plastic. I blinked, and of course there was no plastic there, just a dead girl lying under a sheet…”

“Diane, today I visited the site on the South Carolina side of the Savannah river where Maya Samson’s body was found. I heard an owl calling, loudly and repeatedly, but none of the local law-enforcement officers who were with me could hear anything. They insisted that there was no habitat for owls nearby, since we were in the industrial port area, and anyway it was the middle of the day…”

“Diane, earlier this evening I was walking though Forsyth Park on my way back to the hotel. It was a long straight path lined with live oaks on each side. Suddenly, I could see out of the corner of my eye, stretched between each oak tree, a red velvet curtain. But when I turned my head to look at it directly, the curtain disappeared…”

Later in the recording, Coop’s voice took on a desperate, hopeless quality, that reminded Harry with a twisting jolt of agony of how Coop had sounded in the Black Lodge. He no longer addressed Diane by name, just spoke as if to himself. “When I returned to my room this evening, my key card wouldn’t work. I must have spent five minutes trying to get the door open, before a woman came out and asked me what I was doing. I realized I had the wrong room and apologized. She shut the door, and I saw the room I had been trying to get into was Room 315. I remembered my room was on the fifth floor. What was I doing there?”

“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went to Colonial Park Cemetery after midnight. Spent hours walking around, listening for the dead beneath my feet. I could hear the curses of the men who died by violence, the screams of the women who died in childbirth, the cries of the children who died of yellow fever. And then the cemetery grew larger, so that it held those who hadn’t even been buried, the runaway slaves and the victims of lynching and the generations of Indians and the soldiers on faraway battlefields. And all the victims from all the murder cases I’ve worked, I could hear all of them too, all the way from the different morgues where I looked into their dead faces. It was deafening. The dead so outnumber the living, why had I never noticed that before? They are so many, and we are so few …”

And then, most chillingly, “Last night I dreamed of the Black Lodge again. Now I understand what’s happening. There is a shadow following me. I think it’s made of the same stuff as the doppelgangers, but it’s inchoate, formless. I brought it with me out of the Lodge. I need to find a way to stop it.” The recording ended there.

Harry sat on the bed, his mind racing. At least now he knew why Coop had left the FBI and come to Tibet. Coop thought there was something wrong with him, that Bob and the Black Lodge had somehow infected him with their evil. Why had Harry just assumed that Coop was fine dealing with the aftermath of everything that had happened last year? Of course he hadn’t been fine, no one would be after what he went through. Maybe if Harry had just been a bit more proactive about talking to Coop about what he was feeling, Coop would have felt he could have come to him instead of fleeing halfway around the world to the most remote place he could find. Instead, Coop was now convinced he was trailing around some sort of residual shadow from the Lodge, and Harry was going to have to convince him that wasn’t true. The worst part was that there was a lingering doubt in the back of Harry’s mind about whether it maybe was true. Coop did have those strange psychic abilities or whatever they were, and he knew way more about this mumbo-jumbo stuff than Harry did. Coop had had dreams and visions about the Black Lodge before he ever went there, so if he had started having those kinds of dreams and visions again while in Savannah, that couldn’t be a good sign. And then Harry himself had had all those dreams in which there was indeed a terrible shadow following Coop, and those dreams had felt so real that he couldn’t just ignore them. Coop seemed to be his usual self now, but his voice on that recording had scared the hell out of Harry. Well, there really was some sort of hidden evil or not, the outcome was the same as far as Harry’s next move was concerned. Either way, he was going to stay with Coop as long as it took to help him defeat the shadow, whether it was real or imagined.

Lost in thought, Harry jumped a bit when the door to the room swung open. Coop came in, a bit disheveled and smelling strongly of yak (or nak). He stopped short when he saw Harry, so Harry assumed he must look as distressed as he felt. “Harry?” Coop asked in concern. “Are you all right?”

“Why didn’t you just call me?” That wasn’t what Harry had meant to say, but out of all the emotions he was feeling, the one that had risen to the top was the lingering hurt that Coop hadn’t come to him when things had started to go bad in Savannah.

“I wanted to. But, Harry, you’ve already done so much for me, given so much of yourself, more than you should.” Coop’s eyes fell on Harry’s neck, and Harry self-consciously covered it with his hand. He knew Coop was looking at the scar from where Bob had slashed his throat last year. Coop went on, “I couldn’t ask anything more of you.”

“You didn’t have to ask, Coop.” Harry felt sick at the thought that Coop had been trying to protect him. “Did you really think it was better for me to not know where you were or whether you were okay?”

Coop came and sat down next to him on the bed. He put his arm around Harry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Harry leaned into Coop a bit. “It’s just, you didn’t make it easy for me to find you. If I had failed, would I have never seen you again?”

“If it’s any consolation, my intention was never to stay away permanently. In fact, I am hoping to be able to return to Twin Peaks someday. I just need to develop the spiritual strength to overcome the shadow.”

Putting aside the part about returning to Twin Peaks, which caused a spark of hope to momentarily flare, Harry focused on the key issue. “Coop, there is no shadow. It’s just your memories of what happened last year. I didn’t go through half of what you did, but I still see and hear things from the Black Lodge, from when Bob was…” Not able to finish that sentence, Harry pushed on. “You know, flashbacks, like what you saw in Savannah. And nightmares, I still get them too sometimes.”

Coop was quiet for a moment. “You never told me that.”

“Well, I should have. I shouldn’t have made you feel like you were going through this alone, Coop. I’m sorry.”

“That’s not why I left, Harry.” Coop keyed in on the source of his guilt. “I never doubted that you were there for me. I wish you had told me how you were feeling, because _you_ shouldn’t have had to go through that alone, but the things I experienced in Savannah were not memories or flashbacks. There is a real shadow, I can feel it and see it, right here in this room. I’ve even come to understand, on some level, where it came from.”

“And?” Harry prompted, when Coop didn’t immediately continue. “Where did it come from?”

“I’ve reached the realization that what the Black Lodge is, in the most fundamental sense, is a liminal space.” Seeing Harry’s blank look, Coop sort-of clarified, “An intermediate state.”

Remembering something he had read in the _Tibetan Book of the Dead_ while on the plane, Harry said, more to himself than to Coop, “Bardo.”

Coop looked taken aback at that statement. Harry was proud of himself; Dale Cooper was not an easy person to take aback. “That’s exactly right, Harry.”

By way of explanation, Harry rummaged through his pack and tossed the _Book of the Dead_ onto the mattress. “You read it?” Coop asked, picking up the book.

“Well, I skimmed it. That’s actually how I figured out you were here – long story. Anyway, I didn’t understand most of it.”

“I think you understand more than you’re giving yourself credit for, Harry. The _Tibetan Book of the Dead_ is the title given to most English translations of the book for marketing purposes. The Tibetan name is _Bardo Thodol_ , which literally means _Liberation through Hearing during the Intermediate State_.”

“I can see why the marketers went with _Book of the Dead_ instead. So, bardo is an intermediate state between life and death, right?” Harry didn’t think he liked where this was going.

“In general, yes, but it can also refer to any transitional state. In the case of the Black Lodge, and the White Lodge as well, it’s a state of transition between this world and another. In bardo, there is ample opportunity for spiritual progress, because what is encountered there is the direct experience of reality. But for the unprepared mind, bardo presents great danger, because direct experience of reality can bring out lesser impulses. That’s what happened to me in the Black Lodge.”

“Coop. We’ve been through this before. It was no failure on your part that got you trapped in the Black Lodge.”

“My failure was that I was unprepared. That provided an opening for the shadow to find me. That’s why I came here. The monks can help me progress in my spiritual training so that I can enter bardo again, with the right mindset this time, and then I can overcome the shadow –”

“No.” Harry had to cut off that line of thinking right there. “If you’re talking about going into the Black Lodge _again_ –”

“Not the Black Lodge, no. There are other forms of bardo. The _Book of the Dead_ describes six traditional bardo states, sort of like different states of consciousness.”

Harry vaguely did remember that from his skimming. He grabbed the book back from Coop and flipped through it. “The first bardo, the Bardo of This Life,” he read aloud.

“Yes, that’s the normal waking consciousness we experience between birth and death, so it doesn’t allow for direct encounters with reality.”

Harry didn’t see why that counted as bardo then, or what it was that everyone encountered in their normal waking consciousness if not reality, but he shrugged it off and moved on. “The second bardo, the Bardo of Dream.”

“That’s essentially a subset of the first bardo. It can be a powerful state but is difficult to direct with one’s will without extensive training in dream yoga.”

Again, that raised way more questions than answers, but Harry flipped the pages to the next one. “The third bardo, the Bardo of Meditation.”

“Yes. That is the most likely means by which, with sufficient training, I can effectuate the needed state.”

“Okay.” Seemed like Coop would have a head start on that, since he meditated all the time anyway. Curious, Harry paged through to the last three bardos, the descriptions instilling in him a feeling of dread.

“Coop, you’re not going anywhere near bardos four through six. They’re all about death.”

“That’s right. The fourth Bardo of Dying, the fifth Bardo of Dharmata, which commences after the final inner breath, and the sixth Bardo of Existence, where consciousness becomes disconnected from any physical form before transmigrating into the next incarnation.”

“Like I said, you’re not going anywhere near those ones.”

“We’ll all experience those bardos someday. The goal is to be prepared for them.” Coop smiled serenely, looking a bit like the Buddha Shakyamuni.

“Well, for now, the goal is to be prepared for bardo number three. How _is_ your spiritual training progressing, anyway?”

“I’m not really sure. There isn’t a map for this sort of this journey.”

“How do you _feel_ it’s progressing? What do we need to do to get you ready?” Harry was eager to do whatever had to be done to get Coop into this meditative state or whatever it was. Every day that Coop spent with part of the Black Lodge inside him, or felt like part of it was inside him, was one day too many. Harry was willing to believe that what Coop was proposing to do, to enter the third bardo, would work. If Coop was right and the shadow was real, Harry was confident that Coop would be able to overpower it, because Coop had so much inner light. Even if the shadow was imagined, maybe all that mattered was that Coop believed that this bardo business would take care of it. Either way, Harry was a bit frustrated that there wasn’t really anything he could to do help other than provide moral support, but at the same time was comforted that all Coop would be doing was meditating, so at least he wouldn’t be in any physical danger. Compared to some of the stunts they had pulled last spring, this plan almost qualified as sane and reasonable.

Coop looked thoughtful as he pondered Harry’s question. “Again, I’m not really sure, but I believe I have an idea for how we can find out. Harry, are you feeling well enough for a hike tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Harry’s headache and fatigue were gone, and his appetite had returned. “Where are we going?”

“To visit the hermit.”


	8. Chapter 8

As Coop explained it, the hermit was a former head monk of the monastery, who many years ago had retreated to live alone on a windswept ridgetop. Coop pointed out the location of the hermit’s retreat from the monastery gate as he and Harry set out on their hike the next morning. It was due east of the monastery, located on a spur of the central peak of the three that dominated the skyline, just a couple of miles in distance and maybe two thousand vertical feet above where they now stood. Now that he knew where to look, Harry could barely make out a bump on the ridgetop, which could possibly be the hut that, according to Coop, the monk had built by hand out of glacial boulders he had dragged to his new home on a makeshift sled. Harry had to wonder at the mindset of someone who had felt that the monastery wasn’t quite isolated or spartan enough a place to live.

Coop had also explained that he had planned to visit the hermit eventually anyway, as the monks had told him that the monk was a bodhisattva of much-renowned wisdom, and now was as good a time as any. Harry and Coop had filled their smaller day packs with barley, yak butter, and tea leaves, as it was considered good form to bring an offering to the hermit in exchange for his counsel. It was another brilliantly bright and windy morning, with a cold bite to the air that promised to ease as the sun climbed higher.

Now that Harry was better acclimated to the altitude and wasn’t constantly gasping for breath, he found the hiking much more enjoyable. Having Coop with him now also added immensely to his enjoyment, of course. Coop was, as always, a fun companion, surveying the landscape around him and keeping up a constant stream of chatter, to the point of being something of a hazard to himself. At one point, he tripped on a boulder while looking up at what he thought might be a Himalayan golden eagle soaring overhead. Harry grabbed him to keep him from falling, saying, “Watch out, city boy,” which earned him a grin.

Harry reflected on the last time they had gone hiking together, which was the only time they had gone on a hike just for fun rather the tramping around the woods they had routinely done as part of investigations. It had been when Coop visited Twin Peaks in June for Andy and Lucy’s wedding. Coop had only been able to get the weekend off work, so the day after the wedding had been his last full day in town before he had to catch his flight back to Philadelphia the next day. Since it had been another gorgeous summer day, they had spent the day hiking up Whitetail Mountain. Harry had been initially unsure whether Coop would want to venture into the woods, given all the terrible things that had happened to him there, but when he suggested the hike Coop agreed enthusiastically. In any case, the trail to Whitetail Mountain was nowhere near Glastonbury Grove, and a Pacific Northwest forest on a sunny summer day is significantly less spooky than the same forest in the gloom of late winter. The hike had made for an essentially perfect day, with Coop asking Harry about every tree, bird, flower, and rock they passed on the way up and about every landmark they could see from the summit as they spent hours lazing in the sun with the sculpted peaks of the Selkirk Range spread out before them.

Harry remembered how on the way down Coop, a few feet ahead of him, had stopped so suddenly Harry had almost crashed into him, and asked in a tone of mingled horror and awe, “Harry, what’s that?” Fearing that they had stumbled upon a new entrance to the Black Lodge or something, Harry had looked at where Coop was pointing at the ground, then immediately relaxed as he saw the nine-inch long tube of yellow slime and said, “That’s a banana slug.” Coop had repeated, “Banana slug,” in wonder, adding “No one told me there was such a thing as banana slugs.” He had picked up the stick the slug was resting on for a closer look. Harry had mentioned how, when they were kids, his brother Frank told him banana slugs made you hallucinate if you licked them. Coop had asked if that was true, Harry had said he didn’t know because he hadn’t been dumb enough to fall for Frank’s tricks, and Coop had said there was only one way to find out, sticking out his tongue as if to lick the slug. Harry, horrified, had said “Coop!”, and Coop had cracked up and put the un-licked slug back on the ground. They had both stood there laughing so hard it was probably five minutes before they were able to continue hiking.

Now, Coop noticed Harry’s grin at the memory, asking what was so funny. “Just wondering if they have banana slugs up here,” Harry replied, and they both laughed.

Here in the Himalayas, their roles were reversed, because now Harry had no idea what anything was and Coop was the expert. As they approached one of the small shrines that sit in the middle of trails throughout the region, Harry started to go around it on the right side. “Harry, no!” Coop said, grabbing his arm to stop him.

“What?” Harry looked around for whatever the danger could possibly be.

“You always pass a stupa in a clockwise direction, so the stupa is on your right.”

“Stupa?”

“That’s what these structures are called. They’re in the shape of a seated Buddha and often contain sacred relics. Pradakhshina, or circumambulation in the clockwise direction, brings karmic benefits, but going in the counterclockwise direction has negative impacts on one’s karma.”

“Oh. Good to know.” Harry tried to remember, for the dozens of stupas he had passed on the trail here, how many he had gone around clockwise versus counterclockwise. It was probably about equal between the two directions, because he had been going around them completely randomly. He hoped he hadn’t irrevocably damaged his karma in the process.

As they walked past the stupa in the correct direction, with the stupa on their right, Coop turned the series of engraved cylindrical wheels installed in the side of the structure. “What are those things?” Harry asked. He had been wondering about them ever since he saw the first one.

“Prayer wheels. Spinning the wheel is said to have the same effect as orally reciting the prayer that is engraved on them. Again, they should only be spun in the clockwise direction.”

“What does the prayer say?”

“Most commonly, _Om mani padme hum_. That’s a Sanskrit mantra that translates roughly as ‘the jewel in the lotus.’”

“Isn’t that what the monks say in their chants?”

“That’s right. It’s also the most common mantra engraved on mani stones.” Coop gestured at a nearby mound of the ubiquitous painted stones. “And on prayer flags, where the wind horse is said to gallop through the air carrying the mantra.” The wind fluttered the colored flags strung out from the top spire of the stupa.

Satisfied by his newfound knowledge, Harry also turned the prayer wheels on the stupa in a clockwise direction as he passed. He was going to need all the karmic benefits he could get.

As the day progressed, they climbed higher and higher, passing a couple more stupas and spinning more prayer wheels. Finally, in the afternoon, they reached the ridgetop. It was a lonely, windswept place, ideal for a hermetic existence. The boulder-built shelter clung to the narrow spur of land, which dropped off on both sides to the glacial valleys below, while the summit of the highest peak loomed overhead, closer than ever. It felt like the bottom of the sky as much as the top of the earth.

Sitting beside his hut, as still as the boulder he sat upon in the lotus position, was the hermit. As Harry and Coop approached, the hermit opened his eyes and grinned. He was an ancient man, all bones and no teeth. He wore the same embroidered robes as Coop and the monks down at the monastery, but his were faded by the sun, like the once-bright prayer flags that waved above his head. His face was as crevassed as a glacier. But his toothless smile and his eyes, squinting against the harsh sunlight, held that Buddha-like serenity. Harry had no trouble believing that this man really was a bodhisattva, inasmuch as he believed bodhisattvas existed.

“Tashi delek, Rinpoche,” Coop said, bowing. Harry hastily bowed too.

“Tashi delek, Shaiksha,” the hermit replied. His voice, clearly not used often, rasped like the mountain wind.

Coop started unloading the food offerings from his pack, and Harry followed his lead and got his out too. With another bow, Coop presented the food to the hermit, who accepted it graciously. Coop sat on the ground in the lotus position front of the hermit’s boulder. Not being flexible enough to get his legs into that position, Harry just knelt next to Coop and hoped that was okay. Apparently it was, because the hermit, seeming to recognize that Coop was the spiritual seeker, completely ignored Harry.

The hermit began by asking Coop some questions, which Coop answered. They had a long back-and-forth exchange. Although the content of their conversation was, of course, completely unintelligible to Harry, he was able to follow it somewhat just based on tone. Coop started out speaking slowly and hesitantly, and the hermit kept interrupting with more questions. Some of those questions appeared to be koans, because Coop often appeared to ponder them deeply for several minutes before responding. At one point, his answer was apparently unsatisfactory, because the hermit smacked him roughly in the side of his head. Coop looked dumbfounded at that, which was not an expression he often wore, and it took all of Harry’s self-control to not laugh aloud. Following another question, both Coop and the hermit closed their eyes and meditated for twenty minutes, while Harry shifted his aching knees beneath him and fiddled with a pebble. Finally, both Coop and the hermit opened their eyes all at once, the hermit asked Coop something else, and Coop replied in a more confident tone. Then Coop got up, and Harry struggled into a standing position as well, with some difficulty as both his feet were asleep from the prolonged kneeling. Coop bowed to the hermit, Harry did as well, and they headed back down to the trail toward the monastery. The entire encounter had taken just over an hour.

“So? What was that all about?” Harry asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the hermit.

“It was a quite a rich dialogue. The master is as wise as they say. He’s given me a lot to meditate upon.”

Harry wasn’t going to settle for that level of vagueness. He wanted details. “What did you say to make him smack you?”

Coop’s face turned slightly pink. “Nothing particularly relevant, and in any case it’s difficult to translate the details of the spiritual matters we were discussing.”

That was a cop-out if Harry had ever heard one, but this was a time to choose his battles, so he went right to the crux of the matter. “Did you find out whether you’re ready? You know, for the spiritual journey to the third Bardo of Meditation so you can fight the shadow?” It sounded ridiculous when he said it aloud.

“I believe that I am.”

Harry was pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t really been expecting a straightforward answer, especially not one in the affirmative. “Hey, that’s great. What’s our next move?”

Coop sighed, and Harry braced himself. He had _known_ there was going to be another shoe dropping, nothing could ever just be simple with Coop. “Well, Harry, it seems that accessing the bardo requires a physical journey as well as a spiritual one.”

“Okay. Where to?”

“There.” Coop pointed to the pass to the south, the one on the opposite side of the valley from the pass Harry had crossed to get to the monastery. In an unnecessarily dramatic flourish, the first cloud of the afternoon moved on front of the sun just as Coop pointed, casting the mountains into foreboding shadow.

“And what’s over there?” Harry asked slowly.

“That’s the Pass of No Return.”

“That’s just a name though, right?”

Coop looked shifty. “Well, yes, it is just a name. Which it has because it’s a pass no one returns from.” At Harry’s expression, Coop quickly added, “At least not in this direction. On the other side of the pass is the Valley of the Between. According to the master, the valley is a liminal space that has been sought out by pilgrims since ancient times. If there is an answer for me, I’ll find it there.”

“Sounds like quite a hike.” Harry assumed it wasn’t one they covered in the guidebooks. “When do we leave?”

Coop didn’t answer right away. He stopped walking and turned to look at Harry. “Harry, I realize you’re not going to like this, but it would be better if I went alone.”

“Are you serious? Come on, Coop, we’ve been down this road before. Things always go better when we stick together.”

“I understand that has been the case in the past, but every situation is different. For one thing, I’m not sure how long this journey will take, and you have responsibilities to return to in Twin Peaks –”

“Forget that.” Getting back to work on time was so far down the list of things Harry was worried about, it was laughable. “Hawk knows where I am and what I’m doing, more or less. He can cover for me. What else have you got?”

Sighing again, Coop said, “It might be dangerous.”

“All the more reason for me to come, then.”

“Harry –”

“No, listen.” Harry took a couple steps forward so that he and Coop were eye-to-eye. “Do you remember the last thing you said to me before you went into the Black Lodge the first time, when you went after Annie?”

“Not specifically, no.”

“You said, ‘I have to go on alone.’ And I let you.” Harry was shaking now at the memory of it. “And I waited and waited for you to come back, and then when you finally did, it wasn’t really you. If I hadn’t gone after you and found you, the last thing I ever would have heard you say was ‘I have to go on alone.’ So that’s not something you get to do.”

“I understand how you feel, Harry. But the truth is, you _can’t_ come with me, not fully. As much as this is a physical journey, on a much more fundamental level it’s a spiritual journey, into my own mind. That’s not somewhere you can follow me. I have to do it on my own.”

“Maybe,” Harry said, frustrated. “But you don’t have to be on your own _alone_.” To his surprise, Coop burst out laughing. Harry mentally replayed what he had just said. “That doesn’t make sense,” he realized aloud.

“It’s a koan, Harry. Roughly translated, that’s what the master said to me right before he hit me. He was expressing his view that I would be foolish not to accept the help of my loyal companion, whom he recognized as being significantly more spiritually advanced than I am.”

“Well, there you go,” Harry said, embarrassed but gratified to have the hermit backing up his argument. “You can’t argue with the wise old master. And if you try, you might get another smack across the head.”

Coop laughed again. “Thank you, Harry. Your courage and generosity never cease to amaze me. I’m grateful to have my bodhisattva accompany me on this journey.”

“So when do we leave?” Harry asked as they started back down the trail to the monastery.

“Tomorrow.”


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, they joined the monks for one last breakfast. They had been planning to leave right afterward, but their departure was put on hold when the head monk came up to Coop and informed him that they were about to hold a ceremony to acknowledge the completion of the sand mandala. Coop reacted to that news like a kid being told that Christmas had come early. “Witnessing a ceremony like this is an extraordinary opportunity, Harry. We can leave right after that.”

“Fine by me,” Harry said. He didn’t care much one way or another about the mandala, but it made Coop happy, and anyway he wasn’t sorry to be delaying their possibly hazardous journey over the Pass of No Return.

After they had helped a couple of the younger monks wash the breakfast dishes, they all went into the chamber that held the mandala. Most of the other monks were already assembled there, standing in a circle around the completed mandala, chanting what Harry now recognized as _Om mani padme hum_. Set out on a small table off to the side, next to a censer of burning incense, was the series of differently sized copper bowls Harry had seen in the meditation room. One monk was running a wooden mallet along the outside rim of the different bowls, producing notes so clear they were like the musical version of fine crystal. Harry stared at the mandala on the floor in all its beautiful perfection, listening to the chanting of the voices and the song the bowls sang, feeling his mind drift with the slowly curling tendrils of sweetly perfumed incense. Even though he knew the mandala was a static image, it seemed to move, slowly rotating like the Earth on its axis and expanding and contracting with each repetition of _Om mani padme hum_ as the singing bowls added some vibrato to the motion. He had lost all sense of time, so wasn’t sure how long they stood there, watching and listening and breathing, before the music reached a crescendo and then fell silent. With the silence, the mandala ceased its apparent motion. Then, the head monk stepped deliberately forward, holding a small handheld broom, and swept right through the sand at the edge of the mandala.

Harry couldn’t hold back a gasp. The broom was passed from monk to monk, apparently in order of seniority, and each one of them made a sweeping motion through the sand. Soon, there was no trace left of the complex patterns of the mandala, just a disordered pile of colored sand on the floor.

Harry couldn’t watch it any longer. He stepped out of the chamber into the main entrance hall. He didn’t know why, but the destruction of the mandala was bothering him on some deep level. Maybe just because something so perfect, that had taken weeks to create, had been torn apart in an instant. Then he remembered the dream he had had the night of the anniversary of Laura Palmer’s death, the one that had started his recent series of disturbing nightmares. That’s what the destruction of the mandala had reminded him of. He had seen everything dissolve into colored sand and get swept away, had awoken with the feeling of its grit between his fingers.

“Harry?” Coop had followed him out of the chamber and was looking at him with some concern.

“Why did they destroy it?” Harry asked.

“It’s part of the ritual. The most important part, symbolizing the impermanence of all things.”

“It was so beautiful.” Harry couldn’t quite express the sadness he felt at the mandala’s destruction.

“Enlightenment requires seeing the beauty in destruction as well as creation.”

If that was true, Harry figured he was a long way from being enlightened, no matter what Coop or the old hermit had said. He took a deep breath. “You ready to hit the road?” Suddenly he was eager to get out of there.

Coop looked at him a moment longer, but then nodded. “Let’s go.”

They went to grab their packs from their room. Along with all the stuff they had brought, they had added a couple of bedrolls and some dry foodstuffs donated by the monks. As far as they knew, there were no teahouses to stay in along their route, so they would be roughing it.

Before they left, Coop changed out of his monk robes into street clothes, which would be more practical for hiking. Harry had to suppress a laugh when he saw Coop in jeans, flannel, and a down vest. In that outfit and with his new beard, he looked so much like a lumberjack that he would be right at home in any timber town in Washington State.

As they left the building, Harry was surprised to see all the monks lined up along the path that led to the monastery gate. As they walked by, the monks bowed to them. “Coop. Why the grand sendoff?” Harry asked warily.

“They’re blessing our journey. No one has ventured over the Pass of No Return for many years.” Harry could have made a comment about how not good of a sign that was, but he held back.

The head monk was at the end of the line. Coop stopped in front of him, they exchanged a few words, and then Coop bowed down as the monk touched his head. Coop motioned Harry over, and he got a head-touch blessing as well.

Then they were off through the gate and onto the trail that led to the pass.

* * *

There really was not much flat ground at all in Tibet. It was always either up, up, up, or down, down, down. Now, the trail was charging straight up the ridge on the south side of the valley. The day before, Harry and Coop had been in pretty much nonstop conversation all the way up to see the hermit, but today they were quiet. Even though the sky was clear, there was an unsettled feeling in the air, like approaching weather. It was clear that the path they were on was seldom used. All the way up to the pass, they didn’t come across any stupas, mani stones, or prayer flags. It was the longest distance Harry had walked in Tibet without seeing those manifestations of culture, and without them the countryside looked barren and lifeless, a land without a people.

By mid-afternoon, they reached the Pass of No Return. Here, there was a stupa at last, as there invariably were at high points, but this one looked much older than the others Harry had seen, its white paint chipping off to expose the gray stone beneath. The prayer flags attached to it were in tatters, their colors almost completely bleached away. The products of human hands weathered away just like time grinds boulders into sand. _Impermanence_ , Harry thought. _Beauty in destruction._

The views from the pass stretched from the monastery, looking very small below them, to the hermit’s hut that could barely be made out on its promontory at the head of the valley, to a previously unseen landscape spread out before them on the other side of the pass. The Valley of the Between was yet another U-shaped glacial valley, the frayed white thread of a braided meltwater river running through it. The upper slopes of the mountains on the far side of the valley were too steep to retain snow, and their exposed slate geology glistened darkly. The row of sharply pointed peaks resembled the blackened teeth in some creature’s gaping maw.

As they paused to catch their breath and survey the forbidding landscape, Harry’s attention was caught by movement a couple hundred feet further up along the ridgeline. It was a group of birds, about half a dozen of them, clustered around something on the ground. He could tell by their profile that they were vultures, huge ones by the looks of it. Coop had seen them too. “Himalayan vultures,” he said, confirming Harry’s identification.

“Looks like they found something good to eat.”

“Yes. I wonder…” Coop seemed to be a bit troubled by the presence of the vultures. “Let’s take a closer look.”

“Okay.” As an avid birder, Harry was always happy to add a species to his life list, but the vultures, and Coop’s reaction to them, were making him slightly uneasy.

They walked slowly up the ridge, and as they got closer Harry could see just how big Himalayan vultures were. They were at least three feet tall, and one of them had its wings stretched out to a span nearly that long. Their feathers were brown with white streaks, and they bore themselves with that hideous majesty typical of carrion eaters. As they approached within about ten feet of the birds, Harry could see their bald faces stained with blood. One of the vultures moved aside, revealing what their meal was. It was a human ribcage.

“Damn,” Harry said, stunned. One of the vultures regarded him with a cold eye, a strip of flesh dangling from its murderously sharp beak. The ribcage had been picked over pretty well, but there was still enough meat clinging to it that the vultures were clearly unwilling to abandon their food despite the arrival of the interlopers. Beyond the vultures, Harry spotted other bones scattered around, stripped of flesh but still bloody. A pelvis. A femur. A skull. “Coop, what the hell is this?”

“It’s a sky burial.” Coop looked mildly perturbed, but also like he was fascinated by the whole thing.

“And what the hell is that?”

“A traditional funerary practice. In Buddhism, the body after death is considered just flesh to be disposed of. On the Tibetan Plateau, for the most part the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave. Buddhist generally prefer cremation, but most of Tibet is above the treeline, and with only yak dung for fuel a funeral pyre isn’t really feasible either. So the sky burial originated as a practical means of disposing of the body. The corpse is cut into pieces and left on high ground to be eaten by vultures.”

“That’s horrible.” Harry felt a bit sick.

Coop shrugged. “As I said, the rite has its origins as a practical means to dispose of the dead given the unique environmental constraints of the Tibetan Plateau. But it has evolved spiritual meaning as well. As a charnel ground, the site of the sky burial provides an opportunity for reflection on the impermanence of all things.”

“Like the sand mandala. I get it.” Harry still didn’t like it though.

“It is strange, though. This corpse is fresh enough that it had to have been put out recently, likely this morning. The ritual is typically performed at dawn. But the monks didn’t say anything about a sky burial happening nearby, and the monastery is the only inhabited place for miles around.”

“So where did the body come from?”

“I suspect that, with the crossing of the pass, we have entered the liminal space. The master told me that we are likely to encounter beings from other realms on our journey.”

“So all this is, what? Just here for our benefit?” Harry took another close look at the vultures. They did have an otherworldly stare, like they were eying up his soul to decide if they were hungry enough to eat it.

“I believe so. Harry, I need to mediate upon this.”

“Really, Coop?” Harry couldn’t imagine a less appealing place to spend time.

“Yes. These beings have a message for me, and I must listen.”

“Okay.” Well, he had signed up for this fully aware it was going to be a long strange trip. Coop got into the lotus position on a flat boulder, about five feet from the vulture-swarmed ribcage, and closed his eyes. That was many feet closer than Harry would have chosen to go, but he plopped down onto the ground next to Coop anyway. Moral support. That’s what he was here for.

The ridgetop was silent. Even the wind, blowing steadily down the slopes from the high peaks, made little sound, as there was nothing for it to stir. Harry sat as still as possible, not wanting to break Coop’s concentration with any unnecessary movement. In the silence and stillness, he could hear Coop’s deep steady breathing, see his chest move with every breath, and he found himself matching his breaths to Coop’s. Maybe it was the synchrony of their breathing, or the lack of other sensory input, but Harry felt his mind drifting like it had during the sand mandala ceremony. _Am I meditating?_ Harry wondered. _Is this what meditation feels like?_ Then he had no thoughts at all, and there was no him to think them.

The blood dripped from the vultures’ beaks. The remaining flesh on the bones turned black and the bones themselves desiccated and crumbled into dust. But there was life everywhere, griffons soaring overhead and musk deer rambling the slopes and ants crawling among the pebbles and humans walking the halls of the monastery and the roads of the distant villages. Living beings, everywhere, and all of them were in terrible pain, hungry, thirsty, hot, cold, killing and dying, always dying. And death was everywhere too. Death was a geological force, ever-present in the fertile decay composing the soil that mantled the lower hillslopes, in the very bones of the mountains that held the fossilized remnants of millions of years of evolution and extinction, the sea creatures entombed in mud and turned to stone and thrust upward with the collision of the continents.

Harry felt the return of his self to his body. Shaken, he turned to Coop, who was also coming out of his meditative state. The sun was now casting long shadows on the ground, and the vultures had taken off, leaving the polished bones behind. They must have been meditating for hours.

“Harry.” Coop’s voice held a wondering tone. “You felt that too, didn’t you? You saw what I saw?”

“You mean all the pain and death everywhere? Yeah, I saw it, I felt it.”

“It’s the First Noble Truth. All existence is suffering. I always knew that was true, of course, but I never _experienced_ it like that before.” Coop seemed much more excited about that revelation than Harry felt.

“Yeah, that was something all right. How did we both experience it at the same time?”

“I believe we shared a meditative state. I suppose that’s possible, given that we have had common states of consciousness before, while in the Lodges. I hope it wasn’t too disturbing for you, Harry?” The thought seemed to dampen Coop’s enthusiasm.

“No, it was – just the right amount of disturbing, I guess.” As much as he hadn’t enjoyed the experience at all, Harry was glad he and Coop were experiencing the same thing. Maybe he could do more than just provide moral support while Coop went off to battle the demons in his head. Maybe Harry could aid in the fight. “It’s going to be dark soon. Maybe we should get off this ridgetop and find a place to spend the night, if you’re ready.”

“Yes, we should head down to the valley. We can probably find a place to camp by the river.” They headed down the trail on the far side of the pass, Harry grateful to be leaving that place of death behind them.

As they walked, Harry pondered what Coop had said about all existence being suffering. Kind of a bleak worldview, but also kind of hard to argue with. “What’s so noble about that truth?” he asked Coop. “About all existence being suffering, I mean.”

Rather than answering straightforwardly, Coop asked another question. “Harry, are you familiar with the story of the life of Gautama Buddha?”

“Uh, no.”

“Suddhartha Gautama was the first Buddha, the first enlightened one. He was a prince who lived a sheltered life in his family’s palace, so as a young man he was completely unaware of the existence of human suffering. When he finally left the palace to see the outside world, he saw an old man for the first time. He asked his charioteer Chandaka what was wrong with the man, and Chandaka explained that all beings grow old. Siddhartha was troubled by this knowledge. As he ventured further from the palace, he saw a sick man, and Chandaka explained that all beings experience disease and pain. The third sight was a dead body, and Chandaka had to explain to the prince that all beings inevitably die. After seeing these three sights, Siddhartha felt great sorrow in his knowledge that all existence is suffering. He resolved to find a way to release all beings from suffering, and that was the start of his path to enlightenment.”

“Hmm.” This was all interesting, but it was not at all clear how it helped them with their quest to free Coop from the darkness. Given that the Black Lodge was pretty much the physical manifestation of suffering, Harry didn’t see why the dwellers of the liminal space had felt the need to go out of their way to point out the existence of suffering to Coop. Well, maybe they would find some more noble truths that would shed a bit more light.


	10. Chapter 10

Harry and Coop made their camp on the floor of the valley below the pass, on the braided river plain. There wasn’t much in the way of shelter, but they huddled at the base of the valley’s lateral moraine so they were at least out of the wind. Coop pulled out of his pack a sheet of dried yak dung, a gift from the monks. Grimacing, he struggled to break off a piece to use as fuel, a task that was apparently way harder than it looked. The yak dung sheet went flying, Harry laughed, and Coop joined in, as usual having a good sense of humor about himself. They eventually got the fire started, primarily for warmth, electing to eat a cold dinner of yak cheese and what Harry could only assume was yak jerky. He wondered how much of his body mass would be yak-derived by the time he left Tibet. As they ate, the last rays of afternoon sunlight illuminated the movement of animal shapes high up on an impossibly steep slope on the opposite side of the valley. Coop identified them as bharal, the Himalayan blue sheep.

The night was crystal clear and cold, overnight temperatures dipping well below freezing. Harry and Coop both put on every layer of clothing they had. They had two thick yak-wool blankets from the monastery. In unspoken agreement, they spread out one blanket on the least rocky stretch of ground they could find to lie on top of and huddled together under the other blanket. With their shared body heat, the cold was barely tolerable, but it still took Harry a long time to fall asleep. He stared up at the sky. Given the altitude and the complete lack of light pollution, there were more stars than he had ever seen in his life. The Milky Way flowed across the sky like the nearby glacial river, which all night long chanted its mantra of becoming.

Harry awoke at dawn to the sight of Coop going through a series of yoga poses (the sun salutation, he remembered Coop calling it), looking a bit like an unusually graceful penguin in his multiple layers of flannels and sweaters and down vest. Harry picked his way across the jumble of rocks to fetch water from the river, straining out the silt with his bandana. When he returned, Coop had rekindled the fire, and they made coffee with the French press. They also used Harry’s mess kit to cook some barley porridge, which Harry pointedly did _not_ add yak butter to. On its own, it was bland, but that was preferable to the spoiled-milk taste he had been forced to endure in his breakfasts over the last several days. By the time they were done with breakfast, sunlight had angled its way between two of the peaks ringing the valley, and although it was still cold, they shed most of their layers in preparation for hiking.

They immediately encountered a small problem, which that there was no longer any trail to follow. Coop seemed unconcerned. “We need to cross the river,” he said with confidence.

Harry did not question Coop’s sense of direction. In ordinary physical space, the kind you could navigate with a map and compass, he might have. But given that they were in the liminal space of the spiritual plane, he was more than willing to follow Coop’s lead. He did, however, have another question. “How?” All told across its multifarious braided channels, the river was a thousand feet across, bursting with snowmelt, roaring like a beast. Liminal or not, there were some things that could not be crossed, and that river was one of them.

“We’ll walk upstream,” Coop said decisively. “If nothing else, we can cross the outlet of the glacier.”

“Lead on.”

The obvious way to go was along the top of the moraine, which was preferable to climbing over the boulders and tripping over the ankle-turning rocks of the river plain. But it was still difficult hiking. With no trail, they had to pick their own way along the rough, undulating surface of debris the now-retreated glacier had bulldozed up against the side wall when it had carved out the valley long ago. All things considered, they made pretty good time up to the head of the valley, arriving at the glacier itself by early afternoon.

The glacier’s terminus was a sheer wall of ice, emanating an ethereal blue glow. Turbid water churned out of its base, forming the headwaters of the mighty river in an unbroken flow of ice to water, of matter changing state. The glacier’s surface was mantled with rocky debris, the result of landslides from the slopes of the narrow valley above. Looking up the valley, the glacier stretched as far they could see, a frozen tongue spilling out of the mountains’ mouth.

They started across the glacier’s surface, which was not as daunting as Harry had expected. Down here in the ablation zone, the glacier seemed equal parts rock and ice, so walking on it was not substantively different from walking on the moraine. But when they were about halfway across, Coop stopped suddenly. Harry, who had been looking down to watch where he was putting his feet, stopped too. He followed Coop’s gaze, then caught his breath.

A large cat stood a hundred feet away, as still as the snow lion statues guarding the monastery gate. It had whitish fur with black spots, a short muzzle, and rounded ears. At about two feet in height at the shoulder and four feet long, it was much smaller than a cougar, the only other big cat Harry had ever seen in the wild. But it still did not look like an animal to antagonize. Its eyes glittered blue like shards of glacial ice as it regarded them impassively.

“I wish I had my rifle.” Harry spoke barely above a whisper, not wanting to spook the cat.

“Harry.” Coop’s whisper held a note of condemnation. “It’s a snow leopard. It’s critically endangered.”

“Well, we might be too.” Harry was only half joking. The snow leopard probably wasn’t large enough to kill them in a frontal assault, but it could do a lot of damage with those teeth and claws if it was so inclined.

“We’re incredibly lucky to encounter a snow leopard. Only a handful of Westerners have ever seen them.”

“Or maybe it’s not luck. You think this is another of those beings from other realms?” It seemed like way too big a coincidence that they would come across such a rare animal, and the snow leopard’s eyes didn’t look in any way like the eyes of a normal animal. Plus, the way it was just staring at them without any fear at such close range was not typical behavior for a wild cat.

“Most likely, yes. I need to meditate to find its message for me.”

“Of course you do.” Coop started forward toward the snow leopard, but Harry stopped him. “Come on, Coop, we’re close enough already.” Coop acquiesced, once again getting into his lotus position on the glacial debris, and Harry made sure to place himself between Coop and the leopard. He stayed in a standing position in case he needed to make any sudden moves to protect Coop. What he would be able to do if the leopard attacked, he had no idea, but he would fight it off with his bare hands if needed. This time, Harry deliberately tried to keep his mind in the here and now, figuring he needed his wits about him, but despite that he soon felt the now-recognizable dissolving away of self.

The snow leopard was hungry. It could smell the blue sheep on the slopes above, and the primeval hunting instinct drew the leopard to its prey with a force as irresistible as gravity. It wasn’t merely a hunger, merely a desire, but a _need_ , an all-consuming obsession. And it wasn’t just the leopard and its prey, all the consciousness swirling around the world was imbued with this craving, this _wanting_ , this striving to make things other than how they are.

New beings appeared among the living, unseen but omnipresent. Their forms were almost human, but grotesquely distorted into a teardrop shape. Their stomachs were huge and bloated, but their necks were thin as needles. They reached out with their hands, groping, grasping, wanting.

Leaving the mind of the snow leopard and of the wider consciousness, Harry returned to his own mind, seeing that Coop had done the same. The predatory surge of _wanting_ was still coursing through him. _I really want a drink_ , Harry realized. He hadn’t thought about alcohol the whole time he had been in Tibet, but now he wondered how many miles it was to the nearest bottle of whiskey.

“Are you all right, Harry?” Coop was watching him carefully.

“Yeah.” Harry took a deep breath. The snow leopard was gone. “So what was that one about?”

“The second noble truth. Suffering arises from tanha, which is variously translated as craving, desire, or attachment.”

“So the reason we suffer is not because bad things happen. It’s because we want things, and we might not get them, or even if we do get them they might not make us happy, or even if they do make us happy we’ll lose them eventually because of impermanence.” Harry felt like he was getting the hang of this.

“That’s right.” Coop looked pleased, as he always did when Harry got something right about Buddhism. “Often tanha is subdivided into craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being – which is attachment to one’s own ego – and craving for non-existence – which is the desire to avoid unpleasant experiences. They all derive from the illusion that one’s self is separate from the rest of consciousness.”

“And those creatures with the big bellies and skinny necks …”

“Hungry ghosts. They were human once, but they died while in a state of desire or greed. So they became ghosts doomed to wander the earth without being released from the cycle of suffering. They experience constant hunger but are unable to eat because no food can pass their throats. Essentially, they’re addicts, always trying to get their next fix but never satisfied.”

Harry reflected on how he felt sometimes about alcohol, that all-consuming desire for a drink, which then just led to the desire for another. Then he remembered the hands of the hungry ghosts, reaching out desperately, their entire beings subsumed by craving. _If that’s what addiction looks like, I need to quit drinking._

Coop got up and they continued crossing the glacier. Judging by the change in the sun’s position in the sky, they had lost some time again. After a few minutes of silence, Harry felt the urge to talk with Coop some more. “Coop, do you think all this is helping you? I mean, has there been any change in the shadow?”

Coop looked thoughtful. “Not yet. But it has been illuminating in other ways. I feel sure that we’re on the right path, Harry. We just have to continue the journey.”

* * *

That night, they camped beside the river again, this time against the other lateral moraine almost exactly across from where they had stayed the night before. As far as physical distance traveled, it wasn’t impressive progress. They had spent all day walking upstream, crossing the glacier, then walking an equivalent distance downstream. If there had been a bridge across the river, they could have walked between their two camps in five minutes. But it wasn’t about the destination, Harry reminded himself, it was about the journey. They didn’t even have a destination as far as he knew, although Coop seemed to be satisfied that they were now on the correct side of the river. So they must be going _somewhere_ if there was a correct side of the river to be on.

They repeated their camp rituals of hot fire, cold dinner, struggling-for-warmth sleep. In the morning, Harry awoke in a sea of grey. A weather system had rolled in overnight, and their valley was now enveloped in a cloud. It wasn’t actually raining, but there was so much moisture in the air that their wool blanket was soaked though. As Harry sat up, Coop groaned and rolled over. No sun to salute today. Coop looked as miserable as Harry had ever seen him; the moisture had seeped through his layers of flannel and jeans. Despite the lumberjack look he was currently sporting, Coop was such a city slicker. Sometime Harry was going to have to sit him down and explain why cotton kills and why Gore-Tex is your friend in a damp climate.

Harry got the fire going with some difficulty. Luckily, he had stashed the fuel in a plastic bag the previous night, so it at least was dry. Then he surveyed the multiple layers of waterproof clothing he was wearing to scavenge some extra things Coop could wear. He ended up giving Coop his fleece pants and jacket and his Gore-Tex rain pants and parka, reserving just his polyester base layer and down vest for himself. He threw the ball of outerwear at Coop and order him to change out of his wet clothes while Harry retrieved some river water. By the time Coop had changed into Harry’s gear and had his second cup of coffee, he looked much more chipper.

They set off along the lateral moraine on their side of the valley, following it in a downstream direction, the world beyond about ten feet away completely invisible because of the mist. Despite not being able to see where they were going, Coop seemed confident that it was the right way. That was good enough for Harry, especially considering that they were sure to run into some helpful entity that would get them to their next step. Despite that expectation, it still came as something of a surprise when they crested a small rise in the moraine and came face-to-face with a yeti.

There was no doubt that that was what it was. The creature was ape-like, towered over them at a height of what must be twelve feet, and (as Harry noted with some admiration of Coop’s deductive skills) had a white coat. Just as the vultures and snow leopard had, the yeti stared at them like it was holding a magnifying glass up to their souls while the mist swirled around them.

“So.” Harry said, in a low voice to Coop, wanting some confirmation. “That’s a –”

“Yeti. Yes.”

“Nice call on the white coat.”

“Thank you.”

There was a pause during which neither Harry and Coop, nor the yeti, moved. They just stared at each other. Finally, Harry cleared his throat. “Coop, what’s the third noble truth?”

“That the end of suffering can be attained by letting go of craving, desire, and attachment.”

“If we tell him that we got that already, do you think he’ll just let us go?”

“What do you seek, delog?” The voice was deep and sonorous, and it came from the yeti. The yeti could speak, and it could speak _English_. Somehow, despite all the crazy things Harry had seen and experienced in the past year, this was the one he was having the hardest time believing.

Harry and Coop exchanged glances. Then Coop took a step forward. “I seek to overcome the shadow that follows me.”

“Why do you carry it, delog?”

Harry didn’t know what that last word meant, but he didn’t like the way the yeti said it, with a sort of sneer, like it was an insult. Not able to help himself, he stepped forward too. “What did you call him?”

“Harry.” Somehow, in those two syllables, Coop managed to clearly convey a message of _I appreciate your loyalty toward me, but please don’t be rude to the yeti_.

The yeti didn’t seem to take offense. It turned its gaze to Harry and said calmly, “A delog is one who travels to the lower hells and then returns to the human realm.”

Well, assuming the Black Lodge counted as one of the lower hells, that was an accurate description of what Coop had done. “Did he bring a shadow from the lower hells back with him?” Given the straightforward answer the yeti had just given, he might be the most helpful person (or whatever) Harry had encountered so far in Tibet, so he wasn’t going to pass up a chance for more information.

The yeti’s reply was swift. “The delog carries the shadow.”

Damn. Harry had been hoping against all odds that the darkness was all in Coop’s head, but the yeti seemed convinced that it was a real thing, so that was probably the end of that line of thinking. “What can we do about it?” Harry asked desperately.

The yeti’s attention was fully on Harry now. “The shadow is not yours to suffer.”

“Anything he’s suffering, I’m suffering.”

The yeti regarded him a moment longer. “Very well, bodhisattva. You must enter the mountain. You will find the bardo there.”

“Okay.” The yeti seemed to have reverted to the cryptic pronouncements that were the default around here, but Harry decided to try his luck one more time on some getting some specifics. “Uh, where exactly is this mountain?”

“The delog will know the way.” The yeti turned, as if bored with the conversation, and vanished into the mist.

Harry turned to Coop. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take over.”

“That’s all right, Harry.” Coop looked amused, of all things. “I think he liked you.”

“Good, the yeti’s opinion means a lot to me. So which way to the mountain?”

Coop looked around, then pointed at a rocky path that charged up the valley side wall above the moraine, which Harry had completely failed to notice. There was no telling where it went because the world was still completely obscured by mist. “That way.”


	11. Chapter 11

They climbed as high as they could that day. Harry had been really hoping to reach their destination, the place where they would be able to enter the bardo, before nightfall. He was getting tired of sleeping out on the cold hard ground, and they were also running low on supplies. More than that, he could feel anxiety starting to build. It felt like the prospect of some sort of battle against the shadow, in whatever form it was going to take, was looming over them, and he had always been a man of action. Whatever was coming, he’d just as soon face it rather than have to worry about it endlessly. But they didn’t reach their destination that day. Despite climbing all day on a nearly vertical scramble up a cliff face, it never felt like they had gotten any higher, because the mist made it impossible to judge how far below them the valley floor was or how far above them the top of the mountain was. It was like a geographic manifestation of a koan. How tall is the mountain that has no top and no bottom?

Coop didn’t seem to have any special insight into how far away their destination was either, just that they were still going the right way. The onset of dusk was almost imperceptible because the day had never gotten fully light, but it was getting harder to see. So when they paused at a sort of alcove set into a ledge in the cliff face, Harry half-heartedly suggested making camp there, and Coop agreed. Scrambling up the nearly vertical slope in the dark would be dangerous, and it was unlikely they would find another flat spot as adequate as this one.

Its flatness was the only thing it had going for it as a campsite, because it was going to be a rather terrifying place to spend the night, on a ledge maybe six feet wide perched above what might as well be a bottomless abyss. Also, there was no water, but they still had some river water in their bottles. They didn’t bother to light a fire that night, just hunched under the blanket and ate some yak jerky.

It took some shuffling around to figure out how to position themselves for sleep. The ledge was wide enough for them both to lie down parallel to its long edge, but just barely, and neither of them was willing to let the other take the outside edge, because whoever slept there would be in danger of rolling off the cliff in the middle of the night. So they ended up lying perpendicular to the cliff instead, but that left their feet dangling slightly off the edge, which was an unsettling feeling.

“Coop?” Harry whispered. They had been lying silently for a while now, and he didn’t want to wake Coop if he had already fallen asleep.

But Coop was still awake. “Yes, Harry?”

“Are there any more noble truths?”

“Just one more. The fourth noble truth describes the path to enlightenment, how to renounce craving and attachment and so be released from the cycle of suffering.”

Okay, that seemed to be a pretty major part of the whole program. When Coop didn’t immediately continue, Harry prompted, “And? How do you do that?”

“By following the Noble Eightfold Path.”

“No.” Harry groaned. “No more numbered lists of things.”

“I sympathize with your frustration, Harry. The important thing to keep in mind is that it’s a path, which must be continuously traveled. It’s a set of practices, which can help cultivate the right mindset. Enlightenment is a process of becoming. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Enlightenment must be like that mountain with no top and no bottom. Exhausted, Harry soon fell asleep, his mind reeling on the precariousness of edges.

* * *

_The pounding drum. The regularly repeating patterns of geometric shapes. Harry was back in the place he kept visiting in his dreams. The Bardo of Dream. He hadn’t had that vocabulary to describe it that way the last time he was here. He sure had learned a lot from Coop these past few days._

_Coop was there, standing with his shadow. Something about the way it loomed over him, the way it blocked the light from reaching him, made it look as if they had been reversed somehow, as if the shadow were the caster and Coop were the shadow. But now something about their surroundings seemed familiar in a way that it hadn’t before. Harry spun around, taking in the squares, the circles, their infinitely nested and intersecting fractal patterns. “Coop, I know where we are now.”_

_The dream-Coop, as usual, had something to say on a completely different topic. “The flame that burns with heat but no light. The heart of the monster.”_

_With that, Coop’s form became wreathed in fire. Harry, horrified, reached out for him, his hands closing only flame, burning, and there was nothing left of Coop but ashes –_

* * *

“Harry!” Coop’s voice reached Harry through his panic. Harry stopped thrashing around and caught his breath. He looked at his hands in the faint dawning light. No burns, of course, but he could still feel the heat from the flames in his dream. He was glad Coop hadn’t let him sleep on the outside of the ledge, because he probably would have rolled off the edge while in the throes of the dream.

“Are you all right, Harry?” Coop was propped up on his elbow beside him, hair frizzed by the wool blanket, looking worried.

“Yeah. Are you –” Harry ran his hand along the side of Coop’s face, feeling the coolness of his skin in the mountain air. He needed to reassure himself that Coop was here, that he was okay, which he hadn’t been able to do after his other dreams.

“I’m fine, Harry.” Coop caught his hand and squeezed it, lying back down. “It’s okay.”

Harry nudged over so that his head rested on Coop’s chest. Coop moved his arm around his shoulders so that Harry was lying in the crook of his arm. Even through the wool blanket and layers of clothing, Harry could feel Coop’s heartbeat against his ear. Calmer now, he laid in silence for a few minutes. It was still too dark and cold to get up, but there was no chance of going back to sleep after that.

“Coop? Did you dream that too?”

“Yes. It seems that we’ve been sharing dreams as well as meditative states. I had the first of those dreams back in February—”

“The night of the anniversary of Laura Palmer’s death.”

“That’s right. Then I went to Savannah and started experiencing the disturbing phenomena there. And the dreams continued even after I arrived at the monastery.”

“I figured out what that place is. You know, the place we are in the dream, with all the shapes and colors.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a mandala. It’s what it would look like if you were inside a three-dimensional mandala.”

“You’re right, Harry.” Coop sounded impressed.

“The things you’re always saying in the dreams, those koans or whatever they are. What do they mean?”

“I have no idea. It’s like someone else is saying them through me.”

Harry was silent for a moment, reflecting. “That’s how I found you, because in every dream you always talk about the heart of the monster.”

“Yes, that’s the English translation of the monastery’s name.”

“It’s also the name of a Nez Perce sacred site in Idaho. That’s how I figured out you were in Tibet. I went to the Heart of the Monster in Idaho and found Tibetan characters for the name of the monastery. They were carved into a rock, kind of like a mani stone.”

“That is extraordinary.” Coop spoke thoughtfully. “I suppose subconsciously I wanted you to find me, so that’s why I was communicating with you through the spiritual plane. I’ve found those dreams unsettling, but it was comforting that you were always there trying to help me.”

“Always will be, Coop.” They were silent for a few more minutes before Harry brought up the big question he had about the dreams. “Why are horrible things always happening to you in those dreams?”

“I imagine because they are a physical manifestation of the shadow from the Black Lodge.” Coop’s tone was matter-of-fact.

“I can never stop whatever’s happening to you.” Harry’s voice choked. “I always reach out for you, but then you’re gone—”

“It’s all right, Harry.”

“No, it’s not. What if it’s the same in the bardo?”

Coop didn’t say anything right away. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “Harry, whatever awaits us in the bardo, I’m grateful that you’ll be with me.”

* * *

Eventually it got light enough to make travel possible, although the thick fog persisted. They started a small fire on the ledge and made coffee using the remaining water in their bottles. Harry did an inventory of their supplies and was not pleased with the result.

“Bad news, Coop. We’re almost out of everything. This is the last of the food.” Harry tossed Coop half of the remaining yak jerky.

“What about coffee?” Coop’s priorities were clear as always.

“We have a bit of coffee left.”

“How much?”

”Enough for a few cups. We might starve to death though, because this is the last of the food.” Harry felt compelled to emphasize that point. But Coop seemed unconcerned. Well, one thing at a time. First deal with the spiritual crisis, then they could worry about their material needs.

They began the climb again. Apparently, they had made more progress the previous day than Harry had thought, because they began to encounter small patches of snow wherever there was a flat outcrop. They must be really high now.

After no more than an hour, they finally arrived somewhere. One moment they were struggling up an especially treacherous section of trail, where they had to use their hands to pull themselves up a steeply inclined series of boulders with a vertigo-inducing drop below. Upon reaching the flatter section atop the boulder chute, Harry looked up and, for the first time since the previous morning, saw something that wasn’t rock, snow, or fog.

It was a mandala. It was the same design as the sand painting in the monastery but blown up to gargantuan proportions. The thing must have been a hundred feet in diameter, painted against the black slate exposure of the mountainside. How the hell _had_ it been painted there? The wall that served as canvas was a sheer vertical cliff, with just a narrow ledge a couple feet wide beneath it. But of course, they were in the liminal space, so maybe the mandala had been created by other than human hands.

“This is it,” Coop breathed beside him. “Just like the yeti said. Enter the mountain, and we will find the bardo there.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Now that they were here, Harry felt reluctant to dive head-first into the deep end of the spiritual pool. The unease from his dream still lingered, the feeling of flames, the sight of Coop burning into ashes. But Coop had on a look of resolve.

“Yes. I’m ready.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” Harry grabbed Coop’s hand. He wasn’t going to take any chance of getting separated. They edged their way along the ledge at the base of the mandala. Coop reached out with his free hand and touched the mandala’s surface. Waves of motion rippled outward from the point of his touch to the farthest edges of the mandala, as if from a pebble tossed into a pool, and the waves resonated with clear musical notes like those from the singing bowls. Harry and Coop exchanged a glance and then, at Coop’s nod, walked through the mandala into the mountain.


	12. Chapter 12

If this was the Bardo of Meditation, it bore a strong resemblance to the Bardo of Dream that Harry and Coop had been visiting. They were in that three-dimensional pattern of shapes, in the center of a sphere with the mandala wrapped around it. The familiar drum pounded its steady rhythm, and the mandala sphere seemed to expand and contract slightly with each beat. They were not alone. Lying on the ground before them was a dragon.

The dragon had a long and slender snake-like body, bright yellow with a red fringing crest. Its head had a leonine appearance, with bright green eyes and a long blue mane. It was a large enough creature that it could easily fit Harry and Coop in its mouth, a thought Harry quickly banished from his mind.

The dragon turned its green eyes on them and puffed out a bit of smoke from its mouth. It spoke in a sibilant hiss. “What do you seek, delog?” Harry was no longer surprised to hear a supernatural creature speaking English. They were no longer in the physical realm, so he supposed anything was possible here.

Coop gave the same answer he had given the yeti. “I seek to overcome the shadow that follows me.”

“Why do you carry it, delog?”

The question seemed to stump Coop, like it was a koan. He didn’t answer for several minutes, while Harry nervously eyed the dragon. Maybe it would eat them or breathe fire on them if it didn’t like the answer. Finally, Coop spoke again. “I entered bardo with an unprepared mind. I was conquered by my tanha. I strayed into Naraka and was imbued with the darkness that dwells there.”

The dragon seemed satisfied with that summation of events. “Then you must return to Naraka where this shadow originated.”

Harry turned to Coop. He hated asking what probably seemed like a dumb question to the dragon, but this seemed like an important point. “Naraka?”

“Often translated as the hell realm,” Coop clarified helpfully.

“ _What_?” That didn’t sound good at all.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, Harry.” Ignoring the dragon, Coop turned to Harry in full-on lecture mode. “To be honest, the translation is misleading because it’s a very different concept from the hell of Christianity. It’s not a place of eternal torment under divine retribution for one’s sins. Beings find themselves in Naraka as a result of their karma and stay only as long as it takes to work off their karmic debt. I think the Black Lodge was one of the minor hells of Naraka.”

“ _One´_ of the hells?”

“There are eight major hells and many minor hells,” the dragon interjected. “The first major hell is called Thoughts. The second is called Black Rope. The third is called Crushing. The fourth is called Moaning. The fifth –”

“Got it. Thank you.” Harry didn’t know if it was wise to interrupt a dragon, but he really had had enough numbered lists of things, especially things like that. “Coop, are you sure about this?”

“Yes, it’s the only way. The shadow originated in Naraka, and it’s only there I can be released from it.”

“Okay. How do we get there?” If there really was all that crushing and moaning, this would not be pleasant, but they might as well get it over with.

“Your karma is like a stone. You will sink with its weight,” the dragon explained. Coop bowed to the dragon, and it alit into flight. It flew directly over their heads (Harry couldn’t help but duck), and disappeared into the intricate network of mandala symbols, wisps of smoke trailing in its wake.

Harry looked at Coop, about to ask what their next move should be. But the weight of their karma must have just kicked in because they were suddenly sinking. Harry grabbed Coop’s hand again to ensure that they would sink to the same level. Around them, the squares and circles of the mandala were being distorted, like gossamer threads of spider silk stretching to accommodate the weight of a fly ensnared in the web.

When they seemed to have regained equilibrium with their surroundings, their feet came to rest on solid ground. They were standing in a valley, like the one they had been hiking through for the past few days, but instead of slate and snow the mountains were made of diamond. Sunlight refracted through the clear mountains, casting prismatic rainbows on the ground. The sky above held a faint outline of the mandala pattern, and the insistent drumbeat was still audible, but fainter. It was an alien place, but it wasn’t anything like Harry would describe as a hellscape. In fact, it was achingly beautiful. Maybe Naraka wasn’t so terrible, or maybe they had just been lucky to end up in one of the better hells.

But then it started to rain. Diamond drops poured out of the sky, tiny shards sharper than razor blades. Coop cried out in pain. Alarmed, Harry looked over at him. The falling diamonds were cutting Coop as they fell. Blood was streaming down his face like real rain, soaking into his clothes, puddling at his feet. “Coop!” Harry shouted, grabbing Coop by the shoulders. Looking around, Harry realized that he himself wasn’t getting hit by the diamonds, or at any rate they weren’t cutting him, but were only cutting Coop. Desperately, he forced Coop down to his knees and crouched over him, trying to shield Coop’s face and neck from the onslaught with his own body. “Why is it only hurting you?” Harry demanded.

“It’s my karma,” Coop said from beneath him. “Not yours.” His speech was a bit slurred. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground and continued speaking. “This is the cutting hell. I’m not surprised to find myself here. After Bob.” He took a deep shuddering breath and ran his fingers gently over the scar on Harry’s neck. The fallen diamonds on the ground glittered like a broken mirror.

“Coop.” Harry tried to make eye contact, but Coop’s eyes were filled with blood. Feeling tears fill his own eyes, Harry bent his head down and rested it on top of Coop’s. They stayed there like that a long time, listening to the gentle music of diamonds clattering to the ground as rainbows danced though the air, suffering though the beautiful, terrible hell.

Eventually, Harry felt motion, a slow rising, as if from releasing a diving weight. Raising his head, he saw that the landscape around them had changed. They were still in the valley, but the diamond mountains were now ordinary mountains of ice, and the diamond rain had changed to ordinary snowflakes. Harry stood up and pulled Coop to his feet. Harry frantically looked Coop over from head to toe, and all the cuts were gone, there was no sign of blood. “You okay, Coop?”

Coop nodded, face pale. “I’ve now worked through that particular karmic debt. That was my lowest hell. But there are others.” He was shivering. It did look cold, with the snowflakes now being swirled violently by the howling wind, but it didn’t feel cold to Harry at all. Coop, however, was now shaking violently, teeth chattering, his skin taking on a blue tint. Harry was once again desperate to help but unsure of what to do. So he did the only thing he could think of, which was to wrap his arms around Coop to try to impart some of his body heat, and Coop returned the embrace.

“This is the cold hell.” Coop’s teeth were now chattering so much he could barely speak. “The karma of my cruelty.”

“What are you talking about?” Harry tightened his grip. “You don’t have a cruel bone in your body.”

“That’s not true, Harry. Everyone is cruel sometimes, even if out of thoughtlessness rather than malice. I’ve hurt people.”

Harry thought about Annie and Caroline. “Never on purpose.”

“That’s beside the point. Karma isn’t the same as sin, it’s not about intent. It’s about consequences.”

Harry wanted to continue arguing, to point out that Coop so overflowed with kindness that he routinely made the day of strangers he interacted with, that everywhere he went he left a trail of people who were happy just to have met him. But he realized that trying to convince Coop of that was counterproductive. It was Coop’s karma, not his. So he just held Coop’s shivering body close, waiting, while the blizzard continued around them.

After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, they began rising again. Harry pulled back from the embrace so he could see what the new hell was but kept his hands on Coop’s shoulders. There was nothing to see because this hell was completely dark. Coop had stopped shivering, but Harry could feel that something else was wrong by the way his shoulders were tensed up beneath Harry’s hands. “Coop?”

“The crushing hell.” Coop’s voice came out in a pained gasp. “Karma of arrogance.”

Harry ran his hands around and discovered that Coop was trapped up to his chest between two large boulders. Like an idiot, Harry tried to push away first one, then the other, but of course they didn’t budge. He couldn’t see how big they were, but they clearly weighed several tons each. Coop was whimpering in pain. “I’m so sorry, Coop.” Harry felt tears welling up again. He couldn’t stand watching Coop getting tortured like this, not being able to do anything to help him.

“You _are_ helping, Harry.” It was like Coop had read his thoughts and had made the effort to speak to reassure him despite the pain it was obviously causing.

“Don’t try to talk, Coop. I’m right here.” Not being able to reach Coop’s hand, Harry just gently stroked his face and hair, squeezing his shoulder whenever Coop groaned. It felt important to maintain constant contact, to let Coop know he wasn’t alone in the darkness and pain.

Eventually, with the next rising motion, the darkness gave way to a flickering fiery light. Coop was free of the boulder, but once again facing fresh agony, this time in the form of heat. The ground in this hell was a bed of hot coals, with flames rising up around like trees in a forest. Harry couldn’t feel the heat, but Coop screamed as his skin began to blister. For the first time since entering Naraka, Coop turned away from Harry and started running. He didn’t seem to be trying to flee the hell, but just to keep moving so that his feet wouldn’t be burned by the hot coals. Harry was reminded, sickeningly, of Bob. _Fire walk with me …_ This was a hell he recognized.

Harry ran after Coop, terrified that they would be separated. He grabbed Coop’s hand, trying to pull him to a stop. “Coop, I know it hurts, but there’s nowhere to run to.”

Coop stopped running and turned to Harry, gripping his hand tightly back. “You’re right, Harry. I have to be strong. This is my final hell.”

“Let me guess,” Harry said, going for a bit of levity. “The hot one.”

“Yes, this is the karma of my wrath.”

Wrath was something else Harry did not associate with Coop at all, but he supposed Coop had probably experienced a fair amount of well-justified anger at Windom Earle, and at Bob. If he was understanding correctly how this karma thing worked, it didn’t matter how well-justified it was, it was still something Coop had to work through. So he took Coop’s other hand and stood in front of him. Coop had his eyes closed, meditating, as the flames climbed up his body and blistered his flesh. Harry had to close his eyes too. There was no way he could watch Coop being burned alive. He just held Coop’s hands tightly between his, feeling Coop gripping them back, and waited.

The last rising motion had a different quality than the others. There was a change not only in height but also in density, like emerging from water. Harry opened his eyes. The flames were gone, and they were back in the mandala’s center, where they had started. Coop was still facing him, holding his hands, and was unburned again. Harry flung his arms around Coop, and Coop returned the embrace.

“It’s all right, Harry,” Coop said in his ear. Harry was shaking as much as Coop had been in the cold hell.

“It was just like in the dreams.” Harry took a deep breath to try to steady his voice. “You were hurting so much, and I couldn’t do anything.”

“No, you did.” Coop pulled back to look him in the face. “It was my karma, so I had to work through it on my own, but you made it so I wasn’t _alone_.”

“I would have taken it for you if I could.”

“I know.”

“Why did you have to suffer so much? You didn’t deserve it. You’ve never done a _nything_ –”

“All existence is suffering, Harry. The only hells are the ones we make for ourselves.”

A puff of smoke drifted through the air, and Harry spun around, afraid that they had returned to the hot hell. But it was just the dragon returning. It landed next to them and regarded them impassively.

“So, delog.” The dragon’s voice held a slightly taunting note. “Have you vanquished your shadow?”

Coop appeared thoughtful, then surprised. “Actually, no. It’s still here.”

“Seriously, Coop?” Harry couldn’t believe this. “But all those hells – and your karma –” If he had just watched Coop being tortured like that for nothing, _someone_ was going to have to pay, even if there was no one around to pick a fight with other than the dragon.

“There’s something else,” Coop said slowly. “Something I’m missing. I need to meditate on it.” He sat right down in the lotus position and closed his eyes, so Harry joined him on the ground.

When they lapsed into silence, the constant drum-like pounding emerged from the background and took over the soundscape. It was starting to get on Harry’s nerves. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one, because Coop suddenly opened his eyes and asked, “That sound. The pounding. What is it?”

“The heart of the monster,” answered the dragon. Harry and Coop looked at each other.

“Harry, I think I’m beginning to understand.” Coop closed his eyes again. “The mandala is a map of the cosmos. Here we are in the center, the beating heart of the monster of suffering that is the world. I can see it now. Everything rotates around this point, the axis mundi. But there are places where the axis intersects the surface.” As Coop spoke, images flashed on the mandala sphere that surrounded them, images of places familiar to Harry from half-remembered school lessons or old National Geographic magazines. “The Nazca lines. Stonehenge. The Pyramids at Giza. Uluru. And the sites in Nez Perce country. The one they call the Heart of the Monster, and the White Lodge, and the Black Lodge.” Red curtains appeared in the mandala, then slowly faded away. “All these places are expressions of the bardo, where those who enter can directly experience reality, can see the world as it really is with the veil of illusion lifted. And because of this direct contact with reality, the power of thoughts and feelings is amplified there.”

Coop kept his eyes closed, but he reached out his hand, and Harry took it. “Harry, you thought the shadow was in my mind. You were right, the shadow _was_ my fear and shame and guilt, the feelings I experienced during my time in the Black Lodge. That’s why I first became aware of the shadow while in Savannah, because it was the anniversary of Laura’s death, and Maya Samson reminded me of Laura, and that brought back all those feelings. But the shadow was already with me by then, it followed me out of the Black Lodge. It’s a tulpa, a mind-made being. The raw material for it was already there, it’s the stuff the doppelgangers are made of, but it needs to be attached to someone in order to enter the physical realm. Because the Black Lodge is part of the axis mundi in direct contact with reality, the feelings I had there became part of reality. The shadow is real, but I made it.”

Harry put his other hand on top of Coop’s. He was glad Coop was figuring things out, but he was also disturbed by the knowledge that Coop had been so severely traumatized by his time in the Black Lodge that he had unintentionally created a malevolent force with his mind. But, for now, there was just one question he had to ask. “So how do we unmake it?”

Coop smiled. “You can’t defeat monsters. You have to learn to live with them.”

Harry digested that for a moment. “Okay. What does that mean, in practical terms?”

“It means I’ve been trying too hard to fight the shadow. In the process, I’ve only become more attached to my negative feelings about what happened in the Black Lodge. The only thing I can change is my own mind, through the process of becoming. It’s the simplest and hardest thing in the world to do. Letting go of one’s self.”

As soon as Coop finished speaking, Harry felt the dissolving away of his self into a meditative state, more suddenly and completely than any of the others he had experienced. And then there was no mind to think and no eyes to perceive, there just _was_. Fractal orbits of electrons and protons and planets and stars. Invisible light flowing forever. Matter and energy, expanding, disintegrating, pulsating, decaying, transforming, becoming.

Harry felt his consciousness return to his body. He could breathe again, see the mandala and the dragon, feel Coop’s hand between his own hands. But something was wrong. Whereas before he and Coop had always come out of their shared meditative states at the same time, this time Harry had come back alone. Coop’s eyes were still closed as he sat like a statue of the Buddha Shakyamuni.

“Coop.” Harry kept his voice, wanting to bring Coop back as gently as possible. But he got no response, so he spoke again, louder. “Coop. That’s far enough. You have to come back now.” Still nothing. Starting to panic, Harry leaned closer. Coop didn’t even seem to be breathing. In full-on panic now, Harry grabbed Coop by the shoulders and shook him roughly, shouting. “Coop!”

“The delog is exploring the deeper bardos,” the dragon said, sending a lazy puff of smoke into the air. “He is learning the art of dying.”

“No.” Harry felt like he had just discovered a new cutting or crushing hell, the pain caused by the dragon’s words was so visceral. He had _told_ Coop he wasn’t allowed to go near bardos four through six. There was no way Coop would hurt him like this on purpose. It had to be that he had just gotten lost, so Harry would have to help him find his way back.

Putting his hands on both sides of Coop’s face, Harry spoke as calmly as he could. “Coop, listen to me. I know everything is impermanent and the self is an illusion and attachment causes suffering. But I don’t care. I need you to come back now. _Please_.”

With that, Coop’s eyes flew open, and he gasped in a breath. Something was happening to the mandala around them, it was once again quivering like ripples spreading in a pond. There was a flash of darkness, and then a flash of light, and then the steady beat of the heart of the monster finally faded away.


	13. Chapter 13

They were back on the ledge in front of the mandala cliff painting. Coop was still in the lotus position, while Harry knelt in front of him, his hands still cradling Coop’s face.

“Harry, I’m sorry.” Coop raised his hands and placed them around Harry’s wrists. “I didn’t mean to go that far.” He inhaled deeply and held it for a moment before exhaling, clearly trying to get his breathing back under control.

Harry followed Coop’s example with the deep breathing, feeling that he himself was finally able to breathe again. “It’s okay, Coop. You came back. That’s all that matters.” He kissed the top of Coop’s head, then released him and stood up, pulling Coop to his feet as well. Coop stumbled a bit, and Harry steadied him. “Take her easy. What about the shadow? Is it gone?”

“Not gone, but no longer attached to me. Or I’m no longer attached to it.” Coop’s eyes were shining bright, like he had just been on some grand adventure. “It’s something I can live with now. It won’t ever go away completely, because I still have the feelings that sustain it, from the things I experienced in the Black Lodge. But after letting go like that, now I can have those feelings, instead of them having me. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” It did make sense to Harry. “So you’re okay now?”

“Yes. I feel more at peace than I have for years.” Coop did have a new serenity about him, a lighter, brighter air. “And how about you, Harry? Are you all right? I know that must have been disturbing for you –”

“You mean watching you get tortured and then almost die? Yeah, that was disturbing.” Harry shuddered at the memory. He hoped there hadn’t been any of that shadow stuff around, because his own fear and shame and guilt about seeing Coop suffer like that was surely strong enough to conjure up a shadow monster of his own. But, seeing Coop’s expression shading with concern for him, Harry pushed the feelings away. “It’s okay, Coop. If you’re happier now, it was worth it. Just some karma I have to work through.”

“I understand, Harry.” Coop put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You don’t have to do it alone. And once again I find myself incapable of expressing the level of gratitude and awe I feel towards you. You truly are my bodhisattva.”

Harry reached up to his own shoulder to squeeze Coop’s hand, then looked around. The world outside had changed. The fog had lifted, so they could now see down the cliff face as it plunged to the valley floor two thousand feet below, the upper slopes of the black slate peak above continuing to rise as far as they could see, and the line of snowy mountains above the ridgeline on the other side of the valley. It had been morning when they went in, and it was morning still, based on the position of the sun. But was it the same morning? The weather had changed so dramatically, and it felt like they had been inside for many hours, if not days. Harry glanced at his watch, but it had stopped. “How long were we in there?” he wondered aloud.

“I don’t know.” Coop surveyed the landscape as well. “I suppose we need to find a way back to civilization.” He said that as casually as he would suggest stopping at the Double R for a cup of joe.

They hoisted their packs and started the scramble back down the cliff they way they had come. Although no longer feeling the existential dread Harry had experienced on the way up, in every other respect the way down was worse. With the drop-off in front of them and unobscured by fog, it was that much clearer how insane it was to scale a cliff this steep and exposed without rock-climbing gear. So it took them the rest of the morning to safely navigate their way back down to the valley floor.

At that point, they had a brief but intense discussion about which way to go next. Harry contended that the only way that they knew led back to civilization (for a given level of the term) was over the Pass of No Return back to the monastery. Coop countered that no one ever returned from the Pass of No Return, and anyway they were now on the wrong side of the river from the pass. They would have to spend a whole day walking back upstream to cross the glacier and then another day ascending to the pass, and they had no food. Harry conceded that point. His stomach was growling, leading him to further wonder how long they had been inside the mandala. So they came to a consensus that walking downstream along the river would be their best bet. Although settlements were sparse in the Tibetan Plateau, they were ubiquitous. As Coop pointed out, the good thing about rivers is that they always went somewhere. So they set off down the ancestral glacier’s lateral moraine in the downstream direction.

Despite the potential seriousness of their situation, their mood was light. Now that their spiritual quest was over, it felt like they were just on a hike, and the Valley of the Between had a stark, windswept beauty that Harry hadn’t fully appreciated over the past few days. There were no yeti or dragons in sight, but they did see a few more blue sheep on the slopes and griffons soaring overhead. Coop kept up a steady stream of chatter, pointing out interesting features of the landscape and telling stories about his adventures in Tibet prior to Harry’s arrival. It turned out that he had not taken a bus from Lhasa to Gangga, but instead had hitchhiked, catching a ride in a trailer filled with dzo, or yak-cattle hybrids. At one point, Harry had to stop walking, he was laughing so hard. He related his own story of getting Albert to procure him Interpol credentials under false pretenses in order to get an entry permit to Tibet. Coop expressed his admiration for the creativity of that approach. That prompted Harry to ask how Coop had managed to enter Tibet, to which he replied “I bribed the customs official,” as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Harry wished he had thought of that.

As the sun sank behind the western peaks and the river floodplain widened out of the narrow confines of the valley, they came across the welcome sight of a stupa on a ridge above them, prayer flags fluttering in the wind. It was like seeing the beacon of a lighthouse after being lost at sea. They were leaving the liminal space and reentering the human realm. There was a path leading up to the stupa, which they followed. At the stupa, they could see, a couple miles further down the ridge, the tendrils of smoke that signified a village. As they passed with the stupa on their right and spun their first prayer wheel in days, Harry was filled with a renewed sense of how much the culture here added to the scenery of the landscape, instead of detracting from it like the clearcuts and billboards back home.

Along the trail to the village, the human artifacts of stupas and prayer flags became more numerous, and soon the musky smell of burning yak-dung cooking fires signaled their arrival in the village. It was a larger settlement than any Harry had seen on the trail to the monastery, with the path even widening into an extremely rough dirt road as they entered the village’s center. The first person they saw was a man about Coop’s age who was repairing the stone wall outside his house. The man smiled at them like they were old friends, calling “Tashi delek!” Coop had a long exchange with the man, who seemed excited that Coop knew his language. After a few minutes, Coop turned to Harry. “Dawa here has kindly offered to let us stay in his home tonight. Tomorrow he and his cousin are driving to Lhasa to buy some supplies, and we are welcome to ride with them.”

“Wow, that’s nice of him.” Harry was impressed with the generosity of people who had so little but were so happy to share what they had with complete strangers. Dawa showed them into his stone house, which was small and smoky, but felt incredibly cozy after the evening chill outside. Dawa’s wife, Choekyi, had apparently just finished cooking dinner, and she guided them to cushions on the floor and set out bowls of butter tea while three small children watched them shyly. Despite his initial dislike of butter tea, Harry drank it gratefully, appreciating the warmth and calories if not the flavor. He got much more excited when Choekyi set out a plate of momos. They were even more savory and tender than the ones he had had in Lhasa, or maybe it was just that he was so hungry now. The food in the monastery had been rather bland, and then they had been on lean rations while hiking, so the home-cooked meal was a wonderful change.

“Tell Choekyi this is the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten,” Harry said to Coop. “So much flavor, so juicy…” Coop smiled indulgently, the way Harry often found himself doing when Coop got going on the subject of pie, and obligingly said something to Choekyi. She blushed and laughed, pushing the plate of momos closer to Harry. Harry took another sip of butter tea, and as soon as he put his bowl down Choekyi refilled it from a kettle.

“Just so you know, Harry, she’s going to keep refilling your tea every time you take a sip. It’s customary to keep the guest’s bowl filled. So if you don’t want to drink anymore, just leave it there.”

“Got it, thanks.”

Even though Harry couldn’t communicate directly with the Tibetan family, they were great company. The kids had overcome their shyness. The oldest one, a girl of about eight, seemed fascinated by Harry’s curly hair, so he let her poke at it, while her younger brother, age six, developed an interest in his watch, which Harry took off and gave to him so he could turn its backlight on and off. Choekyi held her baby in her lap, and Coop made funny faces to get the baby to laugh. It was wonderful to get to know some ordinary Tibetans. The only other locals Harry had spent much time with were the monks, and they weren’t the most fun crowd. In fact, mystical beings aside, Harry and Coop hadn’t seen anyone besides each other in days, so spending the evening with this happy family was a nice way to reintegrate into the human realm.

After dinner, neighbors started dropping by, apparently having heard the news that there were strangers in town, which probably didn’t happen often. They all ended up gathering outside by a large bonfire, along with what must have been most of the town’s population, in an impromptu party. A few people brought musical instruments, including a long-necked string instrument and a couple of drums, and soon they were playing a joyful song while the other villagers sang along. Still holding Harry’s watch, the little boy tried to teach Harry the Tibetan words to the song, with little success. Both the boy and Coop laughed at Harry’s mangled Tibetan. Then the little girl came over, seemingly jealous that her brother was getting all the attention from the visitors, and made Coop dance with her (the ladies always went crazy for Coop). Harry laughed as Coop swung the girl through the air, making her squeal in delight. All in all, it was a perfect night, and the lingering unease Harry had felt after their ordeal drifted away like the sparks from the bonfire.

* * *

They spent the night on thick piles of blankets on the floor of Dawa and Choekyi’s kitchen, next to the stove. In the morning, they rose early and ate some barley porridge with the family. Harry also used the French press to make the last of the coffee for himself and Coop (they offered some to Dawa and Choekyi, but they made faces at the smell and politely declined). The little girl, though, was fascinated by the French press, so Harry gave it to her. He didn’t know what she would do with it, but he wanted to leave her some kind of gift since he had given his watch to her brother, and he didn’t really have anything else with him that a kid would want.

Soon, Dawa’s cousin showed up. Confusingly, he was also named Dawa. Harry and Coop gathered up their stuff and made their goodbyes to Choekyi and the kids. Harry tried to give Choekyi money for the room and board, but she wouldn’t accept it. Then Harry and Coop followed the two Dawas along the narrow, rutted road that ran through the center of the village. At the far end of town, a lone pickup truck was parked in the middle of the road. Apparently, the truck was communally owned by the village. The Dawas got in the cab, and Harry and Coop sat in the bed with their packs. The truck made an agonized groaning sound when starting up, but eventually the engine turned over and they were on their way. The first few miles of the ride were backbreakingly rough, because the road was a rocky, washed-out mess, and at one point the wheels started spinning in the mud as they crossed a small stream, so Harry and Coop had to jump out and push. But they eventually made it back to the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway and turned east for the long drive to Lhasa.

Although the prospect of spending the whole day in the back of a pickup truck speeding down a bumpy mountain road was, in general, not very appealing, Harry was glad for the gradual transition back to civilization. It was like acclimating to the altitude, but in reverse. Now that they were no longer responsible for their own forward momentum, but just had to go along for the ride, Harry found himself wondering about what exactly Coop’s plans were now. Was he going to stay in Tibet? Go back to the FBI? Or maybe, as Harry hoped, Coop would come with him to Twin Peaks for a while? The past few days, they had been so in the present – in the flow of becoming, as Coop would say – that Harry hadn’t allowed himself to think about the future. But now they were headed toward it, one way or another.

Harry raised the issue obliquely as they leaned against opposite sides of the pickup bed, legs stretched out in front of them. “Coop, do you have a plane ticket?”

Coop looked surprised, as if he hadn’t realized such a thing was necessary. “No. I bought a one-way ticket because I wasn’t sure when, or even if, I would return to the US. What about you?”

“I have a return ticket to Sea-Tac, but the date is open.”

“I assume you’ll want to fly back as soon as possible so you can return to work.”

“Yeah. I should go straight to the airport once we get to Lhasa and see how quickly I can get booked onto a flight.” There was a moment’s awkward silence, as an unasked question seemed to hang in the air. Finally, having had enough, Harry asked it. “What are your plans? I mean, are you staying in Tibet or…”

Coop broke in quickly. “No. I’ve found everything I was looking for here. I’m ready to return to the US.”

“Good.” Harry was glad Coop would at least be in the US, it would be a lot easier to keep in touch with him that way. “So, uh, when we get to the airport, do you want to book a flight to Philadelphia or …” Harry hated how he kept letting his questions trail off without finishing them.

Coop stared over Harry’s shoulder at the passing mountain scenery. “No, I have no reason to return to Philadelphia.”

“So where do you want to go?” Harry looked at Coop’s face, trying to read his expression. “You know you’re welcome in Twin Peaks anytime.”

Coop met his eyes. “I don’t want to impose.”

Harry snorted at how ridiculous that was. “I think we’re way past that, Coop.” He gently kicked Coop’s leg. “Let me be as clear as possible. There is nothing I would like more than for you to come to Twin Peaks with me.”

Coop brightened. “I would like that too, Harry. At least for a while, until I figure out what to do next.”

Harry assumed that meant that Coop would go back to the FBI eventually. Coop really was the best lawman Harry had ever known, and Harry couldn’t imagine him doing anything else. But he was glad Coop was going to take a hiatus in Twin Peaks. Harry felt an inchoate mass of latent anxiety within himself about all that he and Coop had just experienced, which reinforced the residual anxiety he had left over from last spring. Coop’s proximity was keeping those feelings at bay, but he felt like they would crystallize in the form of nightmares and, in all likelihood, drinking, once Coop was no longer around. Harry was not ready to be separated from Coop, so his relief that separation was not imminent buoyed his mood on the rest of the drive back to Lhasa.

The scenery, which Harry had missed most of on the way up because it had been dark, was lovely as anything else in Tibet. They stopped for lunch at a roadside stand on a dusty, windswept plain. As they sat on the truck’s tailgate eating their momos, a couple of stray goats wandered by from across the highway and tried to steal their food, until Dawa yelled and smacked the goats, who then left, defeated. Back on the road, there was a noticeable increase in both traffic and air pollution late in the afternoon, which heralded their approach into Lhasa. The Dawas were kind enough to drive them all the way to the airport, even though it was out of their way. Harry again tried to offer them some money for the fuel, but they politely declined. With lots of handshakes, backslaps, and smiles, he and Coop bid farewell to the Dawas, grabbing their packs and heading into the airport terminal.

There was a long line at the ticket counter for Harry’s airline. Harry was glad that Coop was there to handle the Tibetan conversation during the booking process. It turned out that there wasn’t another flight to Beijing with connections to Sea-Tac until the following afternoon. On the bright side, when they got their tickets with the next day’s date printed on them, Harry was finally able to figure out what day it was. It had been twelve days since he left Twin Peaks, which meant that, if his count was right, they had indeed lost a day inside the mandala. But even though they couldn’t leave until tomorrow, and it was an overnight flight to Seattle, they would still get back just in time for the scheduled end of Harry’s two-week vacation. That was because they would gain a day crossing the international dateline, something Harry still found as confusing as anything in the Valley of the Between.

Coop was excited to spend one more day in Lhasa. “We can go to the Potala Palace in the morning. I didn’t visit it when I came through Lhasa before because I was eager to get to the monastery.” Harry was less thrilled about the delay, feeling like he had had enough traveling to last about ten years, but Coop’s joy about getting to see this palace thing softened the blow.

They took the long cab ride back to the city and checked into the first decent-looking hotel they found, which they chose on the basis of a sign in Tibetan that Coop said was advertising the fact that the hotel had hot showers. Harry felt a hungry-ghost-like craving for a shower, and it was probably also a necessity if they were to avoid making enemies of their fellow passengers on their flight tomorrow. Both he and Coop smelled strongly of sweat and yak-dung smoke. The room turned out to resemble a college dorm room rather than a hotel room, and the much-ballyhooed hot showers turned out to be in a communal bathroom down the hall, and also to only be hot for about thirty seconds. But it was still a wonderful feeling, to finally be clean after being so filthy.

After showering, they wandered around looking for a momo stand. Momo stands in themselves weren’t hard to find, but Harry was hell-bent on finding one that sold cold Coke. He hadn’t had a cold drink in nearly two weeks, and it was another craving he just had to satisfy as part of his return to civilization. Coop didn’t seem to feel as strongly about the matter as he did, but he humored Harry by asking each momo peddler if the stand had refrigerated beverages. Most shook their heads, but they were nearly swindled by one guy who pointed at a small refrigerator before Coop’s FBI instincts took over and he observed that the fridge wasn’t plugged in. Finally, though, after visiting about half a dozen stands, they found one where the proprietor solemnly held out a bottle of Coke for inspection, and Coop confirmed that it was indeed cold. Triumphantly, they enjoyed their hot momos and cold Coke, then headed back to the hotel.

Sleep that night was made a bit difficult by the incessant honking of car horns outside their window. After so many nights of no sound other than rushing water and wind, Lhasa was a bit of a sensory overload. The next morning, they packed up their stuff and checked out of the hotel so they could go straight to the airport after visiting the Potala Palace. They went to the same block where Harry had gotten his bus to Gangga, and Coop negotiated transport on a minibus to the palace, which was just outside the central city.

Harry hadn’t known what to expect from the Potala Palace, which made his first sight of it all the more stunning. It was a massive white structure, surrounding a smaller red structure, perched on a hilltop overlooking the city. Going into tour guide mode, Coop informed him that it had been the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas going back to 1649, until the Chinese abolished the Tibetan government in 1959. Now it was a museum. They bought tickets from a booth just outside the gate, guarded by statues of snow lions. Wandering the halls, they saw much of the same style of artwork they had seen in the monastery – statues of the Buddha Shakyamuni side-by-side with paintings of the wrathful ancient gods and the ever-present mandalas – but on a much grander scale. There was also a lushly landscaped park on the grounds, with a small temple, pond, and more trees than Harry had seen in all the rest of Tibet. They made their way to the roof of the palace, below its elegantly sculpted copper spires, and stared out at the panoramic view of Lhasa bustling away beneath them and the higher snowcapped peaks reaching into the clearer sky above.

Coop’s initial excitement at the art and architecture of the palace seemed to have faded into a sort of melancholy. “Something wrong, Coop?” Harry asked.

“I’m just thinking about the Dalai Lama. It’s my greatest hope that he and his people can someday return here.” Coop was now practically brimming with sorrow at the plight of the Tibetans. “To be an exile from one’s spiritual home is the saddest fate imaginable.”

Harry agreed. Before Coop became part of his life, he hadn’t ever had more the vaguest awareness of what was happening in Tibet, based solely on half-heard and immediately forgotten news reports. But now he could see the extremity of the injustice, which was all the more real to him now that he had some direct experience of the Tibetan people and their culture. “You’re right, Coop. I also hope they can return someday.”

Realizing suddenly that discussing the political situation while in Chinese-occupied Tibet was maybe not the best idea, Harry glanced around nervously, but there was no one else on the roof. Still, he wanted to get Coop’s mind off the fate of the Dalai Lama. He didn’t like seeing that sad look in Coop’s eyes, especially when it was over something neither of them could do a damn thing about.

“Hey, Coop.” Harry had an idea. “Why don’t we meditate?”

Coop looked surprised. “Now?”

“Yeah. Maybe it will send out some good karmic vibes to the Dalai Lama.” Despite his newfound knowledge of Buddhism, Harry was still not sure if that’s how karma worked, but he pressed on regardless. “And anyway, that’s how we deal with our own karma, right? I want to learn how to meditate, so I can do it on my own. I think it will help me with some things.” Images of Coop suffering in the hells, of almost drifting away to the Bardo of Dying, flashed through his mind. If karma was like a stone, those memories and his feelings about them were definitely weighing on him.

“Of course, Harry.” Coop looked like Harry had just given him a great gift. “I’d be happy to help you learn to meditate.”

They sat at the edge of the roof. Coop assured him that the lotus position was not necessary, so Harry just sat cross-legged. Coop taught him a breathing pattern and an exercise for developing mindfulness, which involved paying attention to the sensations experienced by each part of the body in turn. Unlike the meditative states he had shared with Coop in the Valley of the Between, Harry found it difficult to stay focused while meditating on his own. Coop told him that was normal and suggested starting for just five minutes a day and increasing from there.

So they did a five-minute practice session there on the roof of the Potala Palace. Harry didn’t know if he was successfully developing mindfulness, but he did feel more attuned to the sensations he was experiencing. With the feel of his breath moving in and out, the sun warming his back, the breeze on his face, and the sound of Coop breathing beside him, he was filled with something like serenity.


	14. Chapter 14

They had a long flight to Beijing, followed by a long layover, followed by an even longer flight to Sea-Tac. Despite Harry’s weariness of travel, the time passed relatively painlessly now that he had Coop for company. They explored the shops of the Beijing airport during the layover and quizzed each other from the trivia page of the in-flight magazine as they crossed the Pacific, with Harry dominating in the sports category and Coop in everything else. Finally, the familiar shapes of the Cascades and Puget Sound appeared beneath them, and they were back in the USA.

They retrieved Harry’s truck from long-term parking as Harry, out of habit, grumbled about the 140 bucks he had to pay the garage. They had arrived just in time for the afternoon rush hour, and the traffic on Interstate 5 north of the airport was at a standstill. It felt a bit odd to be driving again, and Harry found himself using his horn a lot more than he normally would, as if he had absorbed the habit from the drivers in Lhasa via osmosis. At this rate, it was probably going to take them two hours just to make it to the I-90 interchange, and then it was six hours to Twin Peaks from there. That meant they wouldn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning. After not sleeping especially well on the flight or during the night they had spent in Lhasa, Harry didn’t feel like he had that kind of drive in him right now.

“Hey, Coop. How about we stay in a hotel in Seattle tonight and leave for Twin Peaks in the morning?” Harry honked his horn at a sports car that was trying to cut into his lane in front of him and not being very efficient about it.

“That’s fine with me, Harry.” Coop was quiet for a moment as Harry maneuvered right up to the tailgate of the sports car so no one else could cut him off. Then Coop continued, “Let me pay for the hotel room.”

“You’re the unemployed one. Do you even have money?”

“I have a good amount. The FBI paid me quite well, and I never lived that extravagantly, so I’ve been able to build up some savings.” Coop glanced sideways at Harry. “I know your sheriff’s salary is modest, and your plane ticket must have been very expensive, so I hope you’ll let me pay you back for the expenses of this trip.”

Where was this coming from? Was it because Harry had been complaining about the parking fee? “It’s fine, I put it on a credit card.” He had been back on US soil for less than half an hour, and already he was stuck in a traffic jam and arguing about credit-card bills.

“Harry—”

“Coop, come on. After everything we’ve been through together, do you really think I give a damn about _money_?” Harry honked again at the general lack of movement.

“No. But I still wish you’d let me pay you back.”

“How about this. You get us a nice hotel tonight, and a nice dinner, _and_ when we get back to Twin Peaks you buy me lunch at the Double R every day until we’re even.”

Harry had his eyes on the road, but he could hear the smile in Coop’s voice. “Deal.”

Eventually, they were able to exit off the interstate into downtown Seattle. When they passed a drugstore, Coop asked, with some urgency, if Harry would mind stopping for a moment. Harry pulled up to the curb in a loading zone and stayed in the truck with the engine running while Coop went into the drugstore. Coop returned a couple minutes later with a plastic bag. Harry had a good guess of what was inside. It must be killing Coop to look so unkempt now that they were back in an American city, even if that city was Seattle. Actually, with his disheveled hair and flannel shirt, anyone looking at Coop would probably just assume he was a bass player in a grunge band.

They checked in to a fancy high-rise hotel by the convention center. Their fifteenth-floor room had a balcony facing east, where Mount Rainier resembled the world’s largest scoop of strawberry ice cream in the pink light of sunset. Uncharacteristically, Coop only spent about ten seconds admiring the view before shutting himself in the bathroom with his drugstore purchases. Harry took the opportunity to call Hawk with an update.

When he got Hawk on the phone, Harry asked right away, “Anything happen while I was gone?”

“Same old, same old,” Hawk replied. “The biggest thing was someone smashed the window of Pete Martell’s truck and stole a couple of fresh-caught trout he had in a cooler in the cab. Lead suspect is that bear that’s been nosing around the Double R.”

“That critter’s becoming a nuisance.” Harry was relieved. He had had a nagging worry in the back of his mind that something major would go down in Twin Peaks while he was incommunicado. “I just got into Seattle. I’m spending the night here and getting back to town tomorrow afternoon. Would you mind covering for me one more day?”

“Sure thing. Did you find Agent Cooper?”

“Yeah. He’s here. He’s coming with me back to Twin Peaks for a visit.”

“Good. We’ll all be real glad to see him.”

A few minutes after Harry got off the phone, Coop emerged from the bathroom looking more like his old self, albeit still wearing flannel rather than a suit. He had shaved off his beard and wrangled his hair into submission using what had to be an entire bottle of hair gel. Harry grinned and patted Coop’s clean-shaven face. “Looking spiffy, Coop. Is it okay if I borrow your razor?” Harry could use a shave himself, with two weeks’ scruffy growth bothering him.

“Of course.” Coop had started unpacking stuff from his bag and was sorting it out on his bed.

Harry’s eyes fell on the phone on the nightstand, and he sighed, already regretting the suggestion he was about to make. “You should call Albert. He was worried about you.”

Coop paused in his unpacking to look at Harry warmly. “Harry, that’s very selfless of you to suggest, given your feelings toward Albert.”

“Not that selfless. I’m not calling him, I’m saying you should.” Harry went into the bathroom to shave while Coop made the call. Through the door, he could hear Coop’s end of the conversation.

“Hello, Albert.” After that, it seemed that Albert was barely letting Coop get a word in. “Yes. Seattle. Just now. No. _Albert_.” Judging from the disapproving tone Coop used for that last bit, it sounded as though Albert had just said something disparaging about Harry.

Harry tuned out the rest of the conversation, such as it was. When he finished shaving and came back out into the main room, Coop held out the phone to him. “Harry, Albert would like to speak with you.”

Harry eyed the phone in Coop’s outstretched hand. It was about as appealing as being offered a dead fish. “Why?” No good could possibly come of Albert speaking with him.

Coop smiled patiently, as he tended to do when trying to get Harry and Albert to make nice. “I don’t know. Perhaps you should ask him.”

Well, Harry would do anything for Coop, even this. He reluctantly took the phone and said into it by way of greeting, “What do you want, Albert?”

“I want you to tell me whether or not Coop is okay.”

Harry glanced at Coop, who had gone back to pulling things out of his pack. “He’s fine.”

“He’s standing right next to you, isn’t he? That means you can’t speak freely. You need to go in another room. Are you on a cordless or corded phone?”

“What? Corded. It’s a hotel phone, they don’t want people losing or stealing them.”

Albert’s tone was withering. “Do you really think a criminal mastermind would be unable to think of a way to steal a corded phone if they really wanted to?”

“That’s beside the point. Have you ever seen a cordless phone in a hotel room?” Coop, apparently having followed the conversation well enough to figure out that Albert wanted to speak with Harry privately, gestured toward the balcony and stepped onto it, sliding the glass door closed behind him. “Never mind,” Harry went on. “Coop just went out onto the balcony, so we can _speak freely_ now.”

There was a beat, then Albert demanded impatiently, “Well? Are you going to answer my original question?”

“I already did. Coop is fine.”

“Then why isn’t he returning to the FBI?”

That was news to Harry. He had assumed that Coop would end up returning to the FBI eventually, although he realized that they hadn’t really discussed it one way or another. Had Coop told Albert that he wasn’t going back? Harry’s anger, already on a low simmer just at the sound of Albert’s voice, flared up at the thought of Albert immediately trying to pressure Coop into returning to the FBI. He snapped, “Maybe it’s because he’s sick of having to work with you.”

As soon as he spoke, Harry realized he’d gone too far. He couldn’t help himself, Albert’s snark was like some sort of verbal contagion. Trying out some Tibetan deep breathing, Harry tamped down his anger and immediately said, “Sorry, Albert. That was out of line. I don’t know if Coop is going back to the FBI. I don’t think he knows.”

“But he is going to Twin Peaks with you now, right?” Albert said the name of the town like it was a venereal disease.

“Yeah, for a while, at least. He just needs some time to figure things out.”

“Well, as you know, I detest your town and everyone who lives in it, but if that’s where Coop wants to do his soul-searching, I suppose it can’t be helped. I just want him to be happy, and if he decides that leaving the FBI makes him happy, I’ll personally plan the going-away party we never got to have because he didn’t give his two-week notice. Complete with cake and a card that everyone in the office writes ‘best wishes’ on because they can’t think of anything else to write.” Despite Albert’s tone, which was acerbic as ever, Harry suspected that he was serious about having Coop’s best interests at heart.

“Albert, you know you always sound like you’re being sarcastic even when you’re not? It’s impossible to tell.”

“I know. My voice just comes out that way. But in this case, I am being as sincere as I ever am. Coop is my friend. I’m sure you find that difficult to believe. _I_ find it difficult to believe. But it is true. So as his friend, I will support whatever decision he makes, even if it’s the wrong one.”

“Well. That’s good. And I know you care about Coop.” He really did, too. It was like a superpower Coop had, to be so lovable that even a complete sociopath like Albert couldn’t resist him.

“I know you do too, Sheriff. In fact, I realize you’ve been a better friend to him than I’m capable of being, and I’m enough of a petty bastard to resent that, so I suppose that’s part of the reason I take special pleasure in verbally eviscerating you. That, and I don’t like you very much.”

“The feeling is mutual.” With that understanding reached, they ended the conversation without further exchange of pleasantries.

Harry joined Coop on the balcony, where the sunset had faded into twilight and the city lights twinkled below. “Did you have a good talk?” Coop asked him. If anyone other than Coop had asked him that, Harry would have assumed they were giving him a hard time, but Coop seemed to harbor an earnest hope that Harry and Albert really would someday see eye-to-eye and work out their differences. 

“Wonderful as always. After making me go through that, you really owe me a fancy dinner now.”

They walked down to the waterfront and ended up in a seafood restaurant. It was indeed fancy, which in general was not the kind of restaurant Harry really cared for, but after two weeks of yak-based dining it was nice to be treated to a bit of luxury. Besides, Coop was in his element, chatting with the waitress about the specials and enthusing about the opportunity to try Dungeness crab that had been harvested that very day. Normally, Harry would have ordered a couple of drinks, maybe a nice scotch or something, but he thought of the grasping hands of the hungry ghosts and just ordered water instead. It wasn’t that he was worried about drinking too much tonight, because he had no reason to while Coop was with him, it was that he realized he hadn’t had a drink in two weeks and wondered how long he could keep that going. As they looked out at the harbor from the restaurant window, Harry reflected on his drinking habits. He had always denied that he had a problem, because he didn’t drink excessively all the time, just when he was going through something difficult. But that was what it meant to have a problem, he realized, the fact that he couldn’t ever just cope with his feelings and instead relied on the oblivion provided by alcohol. Well, maybe now was a good time to do something about it. Coop had mentioned that meditation could help with all sorts of problems, so if he kept that up it might have some benefit. And Dr. Jacoby ran an AA meeting in Twin Peaks. Harry had never gone, partly because of his denial of his problem and partly because it was too hard to take Dr. Jacoby seriously, but maybe he would give it a try. After all, he didn’t want to become a hungry ghost.

After dinner, Harry got a second wind of restless energy and suggested going for a walk. Coop was eager to get a better look at the Space Needle, so they walked up the hill along Broad Street to the Seattle Center. It felt odd to be walking along a normal city street with Coop. Harry had only ever been with Coop in the semi-magical lands of Twin Peaks and Tibet, or the strangely liminal space of international airports, so Coop seemed out of context here amid the crosswalks and bus stops and payphones and parking meters of an ordinary American cityscape. Harry tried to imagine Coop in his former Philadelphia life, living in an apartment and commuting to an office, and found that he couldn’t. Coop was like one of the mystical beings they had encountered in the Valley of the Between, seemingly too otherworldly to exist in the same space as the ordinary.

And yet what made Coop so magical was how he made the ordinary extraordinary. Harry had fond memories of visiting the 1962 World’s Fair as a teenager to see the newly constructed Space Needle, but since then had not spared a second thought for the structure except as an omnipresent background landmark during his infrequent trips to Seattle. But now, seeing the Space Needle with Coop, it was like seeing it for the first time. They walked directly under the structure, looking up at its lit-up disk hovering above them. Coop sat on the ground for a better upward view, then laid on his back. Harry glanced around, seeing that the Seattle Center plaza was nearly empty other than a few street kids smoking pot on the steps of the monorail station, so he lay down next to Coop. Having never seen the Space Needle from this angle before, Harry was struck anew by what a wonderfully bizarre thing it was.

“It looks like a flying saucer about to take off,” Harry said.

“It certainly does,” Coop replied. “I was fascinated by UFOs as a child.”

Harry’s curiosity was prompted. Coop didn’t often volunteer information about his childhood. “Yeah?”

“Yes. When I was eight years old, I became convinced that, since people often encounter UFOs purely by accident, I should be able to encounter one myself if I made a concerted effort. I spent hours every night scanning the sky with my backyard telescope, and I built a radio receiver that I used to monitor for any potential alien communications. I never did find any UFOs though.”

Harry grinned. He could easily picture a small version of Coop intently and seriously investigating alien visitations. “You must have been quite a kid.”

“I was a very odd child, as you can probably imagine. Sometimes I invented my own languages and pretended not to understand English. From the time I was ten, every day after school I would take a bus on my own from Norristown into downtown Philadelphia to sneak into museums. The university museums, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Franklin Institute.” So Coop was originally from the Philly area, Harry hadn’t been sure about that. “I went through phases of intense dedication to studying a single subject. UFOs, Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory, the sculptures of Rodin. Nothing that any of the other kids were interested in, so I didn’t have many friends.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“No, it wasn’t like that.” Coop’s voice was matter-of-fact. “I had a very happy childhood. As an only child, I was used to being on my own. And my parents were always very supportive of my varied interests. They were both high-school teachers. My father taught history and my mother taught English.”

Well, Harry was getting more information about Coop’s background in five minutes than he had in the entire past year. He could see Coop having teachers as parents, it helped explain why he was so interested in and knowledgeable about everything. “They must be proud of you.”

“They were, but they didn’t live to see me graduate from college.” Coop’s tone was still remarkably even. “When I was in my sophomore year of university, my father died of a heart attack, and my mother died of a brain tumor two years later.”

“Coop.” Harry was horrified that Coop had lost both his parents so suddenly and at such a young age. He reached over and put his hand on Coop’s arm. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”

“Thank you, Harry, but it’s all right. I worked through my karma regarding their deaths years ago, back when I first started studying Buddhism. Shortly after my mother’s death, I graduated and started working for the FBI, and that became my entire life. I didn’t become close to anyone else until Caroline, and after her death my sense of self became even more wrapped up in my identity as an FBI agent.”

Harry thought about his earlier conversation with Albert about Coop potentially returning to the FBI. “If you want to go back to the FBI, I’m sure Gordon would give you your job back.”

“I don’t want to go back.” Coop’s reply was immediate and certain. “There were many things I enjoyed about the job. Making a positive difference, solving puzzles, traveling and meeting new people. But I also had to spend every day digging through the darkest parts of humanity, and after the last year I’ve had enough darkness. For so long an FBI agent was all I was, but I’ve changed. That’s not who I am anymore.”

Harry understood. He hadn’t thought it was a good idea for Coop to go right back to work last spring after everything had happened with Bob and the Black Lodge, and god knows Coop had seen enough darkness for several lifetimes. But now he was a bit concerned as well. As Coop himself had admitted, his whole identity had been as an FBI agent. How did someone start all over after giving up such a large part of themselves? “So what do you want to do now?”

“It’s not about doing, it’s about being. Who I want to be.”

“Okay, and who is that?”

Coop didn’t answer right away, spending a moment looking up at the frozen flight of the Space Needle’s disk above them. “Harry, since the Potala Palace, I’ve been reflecting a lot upon the Dalai Lama, about exile.”

“Yeah?” Conversations with Coop were always an adventure, with no way to tell where they were leading.

“The reason the banishment of the Dalai Lama and his people is so tragic is because they have lost their spiritual home. That was something I never felt that I had. Philadelphia was never really home to me, especially after my parents died. Part of the reason I was so suited to my work at the FBI was that I never had a problem with being on the road. I had nowhere to be homesick for, so I was fine with living in hotel rooms and roadside diners. In my own version of exile, I suppose. But then I went to Twin Peaks, and I discovered my spiritual home, the place I had been homesick for before I even knew it existed. I believe part of the reason I was immediately drawn to it is because I was psychically attuned to the spiritual energy from the Lodges. But it was also because you were there.” Coop turned his head back to the side to meet Harry’s eyes. “Harry, no one has ever understood me the way you do.”

“Well, that’s their loss.” Harry knew even he didn’t fully understand Coop, but he sure enjoyed trying to. “So what are you saying? Are you saying you want to stay in Twin Peaks?”

“Yes, I believe that is what I am saying.”

“Great!” Harry sat up, excitement surging through him. “Do you remember last year Major Briggs said he could get you a job doing whatever they do at the military facility?”

“Yes, I suppose that is a possibility.” Coop also sat up to regard him seriously. “But there’s another job I would rather apply for. Do you think you might have any openings for a sheriff’s deputy at any time in the near future?”

“For you, of course.” Harry was suffused with a warm glow at the idea of spending every day eating donuts and drinking coffee and solving minor mysteries with Coop. The non-selfish part of him, though, rebelled a bit at the idea of the best lawman he’d ever known spending his time chasing down miscreant bears and high-school kids. “But are you sure you’d be happy doing that? I mean, you’d be the most overqualified sheriff’s deputy in the country.”

“It’s not about doing, it’s about being. Nothing would make me happier than working with you, Harry. That’s who I want to be, who I am when I’m with you.”

* * *

The next morning was clear and balmy, a late-spring blessing on Puget Sound. The mountain was out, as the locals say, with Rainier backlit by the rising sun from the window of their hotel room. Harry and Coop walked down to the waterfront again to get coffee at the Pike Place Market, where the air was thick with the smell of freshly caught fish. Not being familiar with the intricacies of the gourmet coffee industry, Harry suggested going in the first coffee shop they saw at the market, but Coop had apparently heard of the chain it was part of and was offended by its very existence. “Starbucks already has over forty stores across the Northwest and Midwest, and there are rumors the company will go public in the next couple of years and start massively expanding nationwide. If they succeed, they will drive thousands of mom-and-pop coffee shops out of business, and everywhere you go the coffee will be the same.” Coop’s tone of voice was like that of someone summarizing the Book of Revelation. So instead they went to a small independent place that roasted its own beans and enjoyed their non-corporatized coffee while sitting on the pier by the aquarium admiring the view of the snowy mountains of the Olympic Peninsula across the sound.

The drive on Interstate 90 across Snoqualmie Pass was spectacular on a such a clear day, and Harry was kept busy on the drive pointing out various landmarks to Coop. The Cascades were, of course, modest in comparison to the Himalayas, but their familiar shapes were a welcome sight to Harry, like the faces of old friends.

At Spokane, they left I-90 and headed north along the state highway through the older, craggier peaks of the Selkirks. The Douglas firs lining the highway waved their branches in welcome. Coop was grinning beside him. “I remember the first time I drove this road last year. I thought it was the most beautiful country I’d ever seen. I still think so.”

As they approached the Twin Peaks town limits, Coop asked Harry to pull over, so suddenly the truck’s tires sent a shower of gravel into the air as Harry steered it onto the narrow shoulder in order to oblige. Harry flipped on the hazard lights. “Something wrong, Coop?”

“No, everything’s fine.” But Coop was getting out of the truck, walking up to the “Welcome to Twin Peaks” sign, the one he must have passed dozens of times while he was in town last year, as if it were engraved with runes spelling out the secrets of the universe. Willing as always to indulge Coop’s mysterious instincts, Harry got out and followed him.

“I never saw it before,” Coop breathed, tracing his fingers across the letters of “Twin Peaks” in the sign.

“Saw what?” Harry had endless patience for this sort of thing.

“The name. Why it’s called Twin Peaks.”

Harry paused, wondering what he was missing. He had to be missing something, given that Coop was a lot smarter than he was. “Well, I always assumed that it was because of Whitetail Mountain and Blue Pine Mountain. You know, the twin peaks.” He gestured at the sign, which depicted said peaks, and then at the actual peaks that framed the highway ahead of them.

“I see it now. Twins, doppelgangers. The White Lodge and the Black Lodge. The yin and the yang. The axis mundi, the fulcrum that the world balances on. It’s all right there in the name.”

Harry smiled fondly. “Come on, Coop. You ready to head to the Double R for some coffee and cherry pie?”

Coop turned away from the sign, meeting Harry’s smile with his own grin and a goofy thumbs-up. “Always, Harry.”

They were home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tashi delek! Thank you for reading this novel-length fic, which was essentially a crossover with the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in which all of the action consisted of either hiking or meditation.
> 
> Because of the ritual significance of the number 3, this fic is now part 2 of an Epic Trilogy!


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